New All Over
by Angelfirenze
Summary: Forcing himself to falsely breathe, Angel centered himself and stood tall, affecting control over the situation.    "I know you're there so you might as well cut the disappearing act."
1. Thrust

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own all, though at the moment Rowling gets all the credit. Sparta. "Splinters.". EMI, Geffen, Hollywood, Dreamworks, 2004.

**Summary:** Snape's face blanked, then, with much practice even in death, and then Harry saw something on Snape's face that he'd never been privy to, even when lost in the memories of Snape's life in the Pensieve: _hope_.

**Notes:** I don't actually remember how this idea came to me, except that the middle of the beginning came before the actual beginning. I just know I couldn't let it go. _Yes_, the title is a reference to Wes/Lilah. *still adores it*

More importantly, the Harry Potter part comes first for set-up reasons, but it will become an HP/BtVS crossover later. Both the HP and BtVS timelines will remain intact in something I write for once.

Chapter I: Thrust

_...The balance is broken, a lifetime of choking leaves you blue..._

Harry figured he probably should have said something, anything, rather than simply walking out of the castle and continuing onward down the road to the gate, but he hadn't been able to think of what to say.

Words seemed so trite in the face of all the tragedy around them. It seemed the previous six years had been simply a warm-up - even the battle in the Department of Mysteries hadn't left him this drained, almost desiccated. Harry finally forced himself to sit down and lean back against the gate, staring upward and blinking past the sunlight to see the familiar winged boars atop the parapets.

He couldn't understand this feeling inside him. The entire time they'd been chasing Horcruxes, he thought constantly of Hogwarts, wanting to be sleeping in his four-poster bed, eating in the Great Hall, strolling across the grounds or down to Hagrid's hut. Harry refrained from looking back at the blasted wreckage of the school, the bodies he knew were inside...the Forbidden Forest with the Resurrection Stone somewhere deep within.

Harry frowned. It occurred to him now, the haze of everything having left him, that simply dropping the Ring in the Forest wasn't nearly the protection against someone finding it that he had assumed at the time.

Or had he assumed anything? His parents, Sirius, and Remus were walking alongside him after all, their ethereal forms comforting and encouraging him_...until the very end_. He hadn't been meant to come back from last night, of this he was certain - why, he wasn't sure, but he was. But where did that leave him now? He was the Master of Death - or had been, possibly still was.

He couldn't allow anyone to find it, he suddenly realized, lest this whole monstrosity happen all over again however long down the line. He wasn't the same person he'd been when he'd first walked through the doors of this castle, no, that was impossible. He'd faced death - even died - no less than seven times...he couldn't allow suffering and simply sit by. It was the Mirror of Erised all over again.

What had Dumbledore told him that night? _Men have wasted away before it, wondering if what they see is real..._That tore it. Harry scowled resolutely before shoving his aching body to his feet and pointing his wand toward the Forbidden Forest.

_Accio Resurrection Stone_, he thought clearly and listened hard until he heard a whizzing noise that to him, oddly, sounded rather like a Snitch. Without thinking, his hand flew up and instantly the Stone was grasped in his hand once more. Harry closed his eyes, forcing himself to clear his mind, before suddenly his eyes flew open.

"Snape," he whispered before he knew what he was doing. "Severus Snape," he said, this time with more force.

"Potter," a deep, drawling voice said beside him and Harry turned slowly to face him.

"You came," Harry couldn't quite keep the surprise from his voice.

Snape frowned slightly, though the effect was dulled by an undeniable expression of long-sought for peace having settled over Snape's face, seemingly against his will. "You have the Resurrection Stone, Potter, it isn't as if you gave me much of a choice in the matter."

Harry sighed, blinking at the ramifications of those words. Then he frowned purposefully once again. "That's exactly why I can't let anyone else find this Stone. When I let you go, you'll go and I refuse to let anyone drag you from your rest ever again."

Snape's eyebrow raised and something approaching approval actually seemed to come to his face. "Very well, Potter. To what...pleasure do I owe the true Master of Death, irritating and self-righteous though he may be."

Harry rolled his eyes at Snape's half-assed insult. "I'm pretty sure the Headmaster was worse, Professor," Harry pointed out and Snape did naught but sigh in acquiesence.

"I want your permission to move your body out of the Shrieking Shack. I don't...you deserve a choice in the matter, after all this rubbish - this utter shite you've had to live through. Where do you want to be buried, sir?"

Snape looked absolutely astonished then, both eyebrows raised and his mouth falling slightly open. "Potter, I...you do not owe - "

"I owe you every year of my life at this school, even when I wasn't here. Even when you couldn't stand the sight of me, you protected me...for her..."

Snape's face blanked, then, with much practice even in death, and then Harry saw something on Snape's face that he'd never been privy to, even when lost in the memories of Snape's life in the Pensieve: _hope_.

"Godric's Hollow," Harry whispered, somehow simply _perceiving_ Snape's greatest wish. Easily, he nodded, then, beginning to pace back and forth on the spot. "Well, sir, do you want your body...do you want to be cremated, sir?"

Snape simply stared at him, then, astonishment forcing its way onto his face. "What?"

"Do you want to be cremated, sir, so...so your ashes can..." Harry took a deep breath and blinked suddenly at the tears coming to his eyes. "So your ashes can be scattered over my mum's grave? Or do you simply want to be buried alongside her on her other side?"

Harry swallowed, resisting the urge to shove his hands into the pockets of his tattered jacket.

"I mean...I think...I think you deserve it and that...my mum deserves to spend eternity with the two men who meant more to her than anyone else..."

Snape blinked, actually speechless and Harry ran a hand through his own still bloody, matted hair in embarrassment.

Then Snape surprised him by shaking his own head, his hair clean and well-groomed for once. He seemed reluctant to speak, but managed to force the words out. "Not anything else...Harry."

Harry's head snapped up and he had to force his mouth back shut. Snape was...staring hard at him now, his black eyes locked on Harry's own...green ones. Harry blinked hard to clear his vision and snatched his glasses off to rub hurriedly at the watery haze over his vision but when he went to put them back on Snape said, "Stop."

Not harshly, not even loudly. Just..."Stop."

Harry breathed unsteadily as he stared at Snape's now mercifully very blurry form. It was then that Harry felt a cool brush of air against his cheek and a very slight pressure.

Snape actually sighed, "I never wanted to admit how much you looked like...like Lily. It was...easier to pretend you were your father - a different sort of pain, but it was always there, I couldn't make myself not see it. Still, I was a fool. Just the same fool as your aunt, to pretend that Lily wasn't in every millimeter of you."

Snape seemed to be trembling now and Harry found himself astonished.

"Justification..." Snape muttered, his voice barely a sigh. "And yet you would...I deserve to - "

"No, Professor," Harry commanded then, putting his glasses back on before realizing they were smeared with tears, flecks of blood, and Merlin only knew what else. Silently _Scourgify_ing them, Harry finally replaced them over his eyes. "I didn't ask you what you thought you deserved. I asked you what you wanted. Dumbledore said he'd promise not to tell anyone about the best side of you and I'll make that same promise, but you have to answer my question. Where do you want to rest?"

Snape stared at him, then, and Harry got the distinct impression that he wanted to shudder. "I will tell you...Harry...if you will...accept my...apologies - for my despicable behavior toward you in favor of maintaining a selfish delusion, a ridiculous grudge I had no right to hold, let alone keep."

Harry took a deep breath, "If God can forgive you, sir, then why shouldn't I?"

Snape seemed to laugh convulsively, his face taking on a disbelieving expression, his translucent hand coming up to almost 'touch' Harry's face before dropping again as actual tears slipped out of his eyes. "You would honestly take my body to Godric's Hollow, P-Harry?"

"We can go right - " Harry froze, startling slightly before frowning slightly in contemplation. "Sir, do you mind if Hermione, er, comes with us? She was so...horrified...and she was too injured to be with me when I buried Dobby. I really think she'd want to say goodbye to you, get a chance to tell you...whatever she wants to."

Snape looked confused now, "I practically spat on her every chance I got, Potter - what well wishing should she possibly have for me?"

"Well, Professor, considering I know Hermione a great deal better than you do, I think we should leave that up to her, don't you think? Even in First Year, when Ron and I were already suspicious of you, she held out for ages even if it was partially because you were a professor."

Snape managed to actually snort and then sighed, "Which reminds me that I owe her rather a metric ton of backlogged praise for her astounding work in my classes."

Harry grinned, then, "Well, I'd be happy to pass that message on, sir. So, do you mind if I contact her? It'd only take a moment."

Snape gazed at him, then, seemingly seeing Harry for the first time. "You performed your first Patronus Charm at age thirteen...I should tell you, even though I kept my foot on your back...last year, you were my best Defense student. Against my will, I will be honest, I was not surprised."

Harry blushed, then, resisting the urge to look away. "I had the proper...motivation, sir. Voldemort and all..."

Snape nodded in what would have been a grim way before saying, "Your Charms marks were always very good if I recall, as well. Just...like your mother."

Harry bit his lip, "Well, last year, if you recall, I had rather a lot of help in Potions from a certain..._Prince_."

Snape snorted lightly then and sighed, "If Miss Granger would like your mother's copy of her own Advanced Potions textbook, it is in my parents' house, in the main room."

Harry nodded, promising himself to get it for Hermione. Then he smiled bitterly. "I wish I still had your copy, sir."

Snape chuckled ironically. "I daresay I'm opening a door I'd rather keep closed, but you will be...gratified, it seems, to know I replicated my own copy, as I did most of my things, as your father and godfather had a habit of destroying them at their leisure."

Harry blinked, then, a heavy pit forming instantly in his stomach at the thought of what he'd seen in the Pensieve. "Thank you, sir...I...I'm sorry my father...strutted."

Snape shook his head. "Your apologies are better kept to yourself as I outdid them each tenfold upon yourself, Miss Granger, and Mr. Longbottom, H-Harry. I have no right to demand anything from you in light of that. Please...accept my textbook and your mother's as meager repayment.

"If I could apologize to the pair of them, as well, I would. They deserved more from me than they received. It is unacceptable that with the peril that routinely befell all of you, I frightened Mr. Longbottom more than anything else. It is disgraceful."

Harry thought for a moment, frowning before turning and surprising Snape by sending not one but two Patronuses into the school.

"What are you doing, Potter?" Snape asked, surprise and actual nervousness coming over him, which Harry found interesting considering the man was dead.

"Giving you a chance to make your peace, sir," Harry supplied. "Say nothing of giving Hermione and Neville a chance to forgive you."

Snape's face fell in astonishment, followed by shame, but Harry regretfully took advantage of the Resurrection Stone's power to keep him there and face his more recent past. Sure enough, within moments, both Hermione and Neville could be seen hurtling up the long path away from the school.

All too soon for Snape, Harry knew, both reached him, barely out of breath, what with all dashing about for their lives both had been forced to do for nearly a full year.

"Hermione, Neville, there's someone who wants to say some things to you and I think you both should listen." Hermione's hands immediately flew to her mouth and her eyes widened in comprehension as she gazed unerringly at the ring on Harry's hand while Neville was confused.

"What do you mean, Harry?" he asked, but Harry simply removed the Resurrection Stone and Snape flickered out of sight for him. He gave it to Neville, who put it on before paling dramatically as he stared at what had to be Snape. Sure enough, Neville stuttered, "P-p-professor S-s-snape..."

"Neville," Harry scolded, clapping Neville on the shoulder. "Didn't I just watch you cut Nagini's head off last night? Dumbledore's Army?"  
Neville seemed to gather himself and nodded, "Hello, Professor," he said, if a bit coolly and Harry watched their one-sided conversation while forcing himself to ignore Hermione's panicked, yet inquiring looks.

Finally, after more than ten minutes, Neville smiled and said, "Sure, Professor. Thanks. I do forgive you, sir. Dumbledore wasn't very patient or fair with you, either. I can understand. Besides, next to the Carrows and Lestranges, you're a fluffy little bunny rabbit and I got on alright."

Harry grinned and by the time Neville slipped the Stone off to give to Hermione, he was holding back laughter. "Snape said he was glad I was finally showing my mettle and do not ever refer to him as a 'fluffy little bunny rabbit' ever again."

Harry laughed as Neville snorted and turned to Hermione before finally handing her the Resurrection Stone and giving her hand a squeeze. "Go on, Hermione - if he was waiting to say all that to me, Merlin knows you've got great stuff coming."

Hermione smiled in a watery fashion before glancing at an encouraging Harry, slipping the Stone on her finger and gasping loudly. "I - hello, Professor!"

Both Harry and Neville watched, this time with identical smiles on their faces as Hermione had her own discussion with their erstwhile professor, neither surprised when she began to cry at what must have be six, possibly the full seven years of hard work and endless dedication finally getting the recognition it deserved.

Neville seemed surprised when Hermione did not snap back to her senses, but continued to cry before saying, "Oh, God, Professor - I wanted so badly to help you, Harry and I both - we had to force ourselves not to come into the Shrieking Shack until Voldemort had gone! Oh, I only wish I'd had some antivenin with me or something! That was horrible, you didn't deserve that!"

Harry shuddered even as Neville turned to stare at him in shock and paled once more.

Harry was clenching his fists in abject misery as Snape's last moments played over his mind's eye yet again. Gritting his teeth in deeply held anger, Harry turned to Neville again and clasped his friend's shoulders before saying fiercely, "_Thank you_ for cutting off that bloody goddamned snake's head, Neville. _Thank you_ for being worthy of Gryffindor's sword and the Sorting Hat. _Thank you_ for avenging Professor Snape and everything he worked for."

Hermione glanced at Harry once, then twice before saying, "Er, Harry, Professor Snape would like you to watch your mouth and that that's five points from Gryffindor for language."

Before either could stop themselves, Harry and Neville both laughed loudly and grinned at Hermione, who was holding back her own giggles, it seemed. All three calmed down slowly, though, and then Harry got back to business.

"I've had an idea. I've asked Professor Snape where he would like to be buried and I was wondering - which is part of why I called you down here, Hermione, but anyway - would you and Neville like to come with me back to Godric's Hollow? Professor Snape would like to be buried next to my mother."

Both Hermione and Neville froze, their eyes wide, before glancing at one another and then looking back to Harry.

"Oh, Harry, you already know I'll go," Hermione said, tears back in her voice as a few more slid down her face.

Neville tilted his head in what he knew was Snape's direction, taking a moment to consider his options before saying, "What about Ron?"  
Unexpectedly for Neville, both Harry and Hermione scowled deeply. "That's a long story, Nev," Harry said quietly, but with definite anger in his voice. "And I'd be glad to fill you in on the way to Spinner's End, if you're agreed to going, anyway."

Harry glanced back at the school, where he knew Ron was and while he was with his family at the moment and distraught over Fred's death, just as they were, both Hermione and Harry knew that, in the end, Ron's selfishness and insecurity tended to shadow him wherever he went, no matter the purpose of their adventure.

Eventually, with enough of a prompt, he'd probably abandon them again and simply hearing that they wanted to bury Snape's body, knowing Ron as they did, would likely be enough.

"Ron hates Snape. I...we can't trust him with this, Nev," Harry said softly, if with clear resentment. "Besides, after we go to Godric's Hollow and Spinner's End, I plan to visit my relatives' house. I have something I have to ask my aunt and it's pretty personal. Ron wouldn't understand."

"But I would?" Neville asked uncertainly, and Harry nodded. "You better than almost anyone else."

Neville looked taken aback but eventually agreed and with that, they set off toward the Whomping Willow, Hermione casting a silent _Immobilus_ charm so Harry could walk up and press the appropriate knot.

"Hey, Hermione," Harry asked, faking an off-hand tone. "Remember back in third year when you asked if that was really what your hair looked like from the back?"

"Harry! Ooh!" Hermione reached over and lightly punched Harry in his arm, eliciting a yelp and a laugh from Neville. Apparently Professor Snape said something else because Hermione blushed furiously and pointedly looked forward as they bent down to enter the tunnel.

"So the Whomping Willow covers a tunnel into the Shrieking Shack?" Neville asked, keeping well clear of Hermione's fists for any reason despite being bigger than her now.

Each of his Housemates nodded and they began the difficult crawl through the tunnel's twists and curves, aided by Harry and Neville's now-lit wands.

Finally, they re-emerged into the incredibly filthy, dust-laden main room of the Shack and immediately Neville began sneezing in thunderous bursts before Hermione cast a Bubble-Head charm over him so he could breathe more easily.

"I didn't know you had allergies, Nev," Harry remarked and from the confused expression Neville gave him, Harry figured Neville hadn't either.

Then the boys turned back to find Hermione frantically smothering hitching sobs as she stared down at Snape's prone form, now having become covered with its own layer of dust to add to the slowly drying puddle of blood and memories the man still lay in.

Harry gritted his teeth as tears came back to his own eyes and he risked a glance at Neville to see his friend's distorted head open-mouthed with shock at the sight before them.

Slowly, Harry dragged his feet forward and forced himself to kneel once more in the very spot he'd been in as Snape took his last breath. Suddenly, something cold was being pressed against the back of his hand and Harry glanced down quickly to see Hermione pressing the Resurrection Stone into Harry's skin.

He reached up and took it from her, sliding the ring back on and from there watching Snape's now-translucent ethereal form staring calmly down at his own body. Suddenly, Harry turned away from the scene and found himself being sick on the floor in the nearest corner. His vision was blurry again and Harry swiped at his glasses before ripping them off again and wiping his face on his sleeve.

Slowly, he got to his feet and conjured a cloth to wipe his face with before conjuring Hermione a handkerchief as she'd now covered both of her eyes and given up altogether on doing anything but crying.

"None of you has to do - "

Harry slowly straightened and turned back around, his face hard and serious.

"Professor, if you finish that sentence," he snapped, glaring at Snape now. "I'm taking this Stone off and doing this without your input. I'd really rather not. Do yourself a favor and kindly belt up. This is about you, get over it."

Snape seemed torn between reprimanding Harry again and being contrite. He seemed to pick a middle road and remained quiet as Harry got to work gently clearing the dust away from Snape's body, now joined by Neville and, eventually, a blotchily red-faced Hermione.

Eventually, they got him free of all of it and Levitated Snape in order to turn him over and again slowly clear his backside of all the grime and dust stuck to him.

Finally, once Snape was clean again, Harry and Hermione, having experience with Snape's body moving through the Shack's tunnels, both took over gently moving his body back outside, taking care not to let his head hit the low ceiling.

"Hey, Professor," Harry said in a would-be light-hearted voice, "Remember that time we all Stunned you and cracked your skull or whatever?"

Snape's only response was to snort and Hermione actually let out a small giggle. "As amusing as I'm sure my head trauma is, I assure you it was much less fun on my part."

"Are you kidding, sir? Hermione went spare! _We attacked a teacherWe attacked a teacherWe attacked a teacher...!_"

"Well, we did!" Hermione defended shrilly and Harry was shocked to see Snape actually smile. "It's nice to know there was compunction on at least one of your parts."

"Well, I would have been more sorry except you'd pretty much gone off the deep end. You weren't listening to anybody. You know, when astronauts go mad in space, the States recommends they be strapped to a chair with duct tape and have that be it. Stunners were really all we had to work with."

"Ha ha."

"What's an 'astronaut'?" Neville's distorted voice asked and both Harry and Hermione laughed a little.

Harry sobered immediately when he thought about what had happened next. "When Lupin transformed that night...even though we'd just Stunned you, you...you protected us all with your own body..."

Harry bit his lip and glanced at Snape's translucent form as he forcibly stared ahead. "What was I to do, Potter? Stand back and allow you to be mauled to death?"

"My uncle gladly would've," Harry reminded and was surprised to see an actual scowl fall onto Snape's face for the first time in all the time he'd been brought back with the Stone.

"Your uncle should not have been trusted with a goldfish, let alone the child of Lily Evans - and James Potter. Your aunt has not changed at all since I knew her."

"I can't believe you all grew up near one another," Harry said softly and Hermione and Neville were both staring at him but he only had eyes for Snape. "I thought when she said 'that horrible boy' she was talking about my dad."

"An easy mistake to make," Snape said simply, his voice without malice when discussing James Potter for the first time in Harry's - or Snape's memory.

"That was the year I blew my Au - my uncle's sister up like a balloon. She..." Harry found his breath hitching and forced the words out. "She said, 'You see it all the time with dogs - if there's something wrong with the...the bitch, then there's something wrong with the pup - '"

"Excuse me?" Snape's voice had become frigid and cold in a manner all too familiar to Harry with the exception of him not being the target.  
"She insulted my mum," Harry bit out, trying not to let the memory of that particular night overwhelm him again. Hermione and Neville were staring worse than ever, but he ignored them. "She - the Dursleys said my dad was an unemployed drunk and that my mum was basically a dog that had needed to be put down."

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione's voice echoed through the tunnel, slightly muffled by her hand covering her mouth. "Why - why _on earth_ did Dumbledore leave you with those people!"

"Albus Dumbledore," Snape said in a familiarly harsh tone. "Had a difficult time seeing people as more than a means to an end, a problem he had his entire life."

Harry stared at the floor of the tunnel as they began to climb through the narrowest parts of the tunnel. "He cried about it when I was with him...after Voldemort destroyed the Horcrux in my scar. He asked me if I could ever forgive him. He cried about his brother and sister and how badly he treated them, too."

"As well he should have," Neville bit out unexpectedly after cancelling Hermione's Bubblehead Charm and everyone looked at him as they finally emerged into the warm morning air.

"Abe told us when happened the night he and the headmaster fought Grindelwald when they'd been boys - how he saw Grindelwald murder his little sister and how his brother practically blocked the entire thing out for years afterward.

"He told Ginny, Luna, and I, I mean. It was on the night he began to help us take care of everyone in the school. He showed us Ariana Dumbledore's portrait and how it was a tunnel into the Room of Requirement. I think he'd kept that to himself his whole life."

Harry frowned and stared at the achingly familiar lake they were now passing. The Giant Squid was doing lazy backstrokes over the surface and he sighed.

"The piece of Voldemort's soul that had been inside me was there with us." He could feel everyone's eyes on him, then, and forced himself to keep talking.

"It was Tom...when he worked in Borgin and Burke's. He was tied to the chair and kept trying to get free. He couldn't speak, but his mouth was moving. The bit of Voldemort that had been in me...it was still human. Just like the one that tried to possess Ginny from his diary Horcrux. Dumbledore said I was an accidental one, so I don't think he could control the bit that went into me. So he was..." Harry shrugged. "Still a...still a kid, if you could ever call Tom Riddle a kid."

Harry sighed, "Dumbledore never told me what would happen once the Horcrux was gone. I don't even know how it was supposed to work but there's tons of stuff I'm not sure about now and even if Dumbledore were here, would he give me the answer? Habits are really hard to break, I know that from personal experience."

"Harry, just because you were a Horcrux doesn't mean..." Hermione suddenly looked confused. "Wait, Harry, what do you mean?"

"Harry shrugged, "I'm not sure. Dumbledore said I could choose to go on...supposedly to the rest of the afterlife of I could come back. I chose to come back and fight, but the bit of me that was Voldemort was left behind. Um. I guess there's been some things everyone's been assuming and we've had good reason, I guess.

"But Hermione, you've told me tons of times that the Founders lived many thousands of years ago and who knows how their descendants scattered. I mean, besides The Grey Lady, we've only met two that we know of. And the pureblood families were all intermarried. What...what if I didn't get my ability to speak Parseltongue from Voldemort? Dumbledore wasn't right about everything, after all. And besides, Hermione, if you hadn't gone into Gryffindor, you'd've been a cert for Ravenclaw.

"And Professor - even though you were a half-blood like me, you wanted to be in Slytherin since before you'd even come to Hogwarts. Voldemort - another half-blood - went into Slytherin, too. Personal preferences aside, who knows anything? I mean, the Bloody Baron was a Slytherin but he was in love with Helena Ravenclaw. I just don't think everything was as black and white and clear-cut as everyone's always assumed."

"You think you might still be a Parselmouth," Neville offered and Harry sighed and nodded.

He paused and the others did with him, Hermione taking the time to gently lay Snape's body, now protected in a wrapped bundle like Nagini had been, upon the ground to prevent him anymore bodily harm. Harry sighed and pulled out his holly wand, pointing it at the ground and thinking _Serpentsortia_ so that a long, golden snake came out of it and landed on the ground before them.

Taking a breath, Harry looked it in the eye and said, _Hello_. When he glanced at the others, they were all staring at him and he knew he'd spoken Parseltongue. Despite his lingering sense of ill-ease, he thought, _Take that, Snakeface. You didn't make everything about me and you never will._

Harry looked back at the snake and smiled at it, a pang in his heart as he thought of Hedwig.

_I'm so sorry I didn't let you out of your cage to fly ahead, Hedwig..._ he thought to her, mentally saying a true goodbye before considering the snake before him.

_You speak it_, the snake asked curiously and Harry nodded, remembering when Tom Riddle, Jr., had met his uncle, Morfin Gaunt. _Yes, I speak it. My friends don't, but I do._

_May I eat them?_

Harry almost laughed. _Is eating all snakes think about?_ he asked before shaking his head. _No, you may not. I will be happy to get you rats as soon as I can, though. We're going to a place that's likely full of them. As long as you keep out of sight, hunt to your heart's content._

Behind him, Harry could hear Snape speaking now, "P...Harry, kindly remember that you are the only Parselmouth here."

Harry sighed and nodded, further conjuring a terrarium around the snake and picking it up. "Hermione, can you Vanish him to Godric's Hollow? We should be there soon enough."

Hermione nodded, guiltily unsure as to whether to be bothered or not since it wasn't as if this was the first time she'd watched Harry talk to a snake.

"Oh, hey, wait." Harry stayed her hand before setting the terrarium back down for a moment. "There's no sense in him starving in the meantime."

Harry found a nice-sized rock and Transfigured it into a mouse, slightly surprised by his success. Without further comment, however, he dropped it into his new snake's terrarium and then stood back up, "Okay, he's ready, Hermione. I'll think of a name while we're off."

Hermione sighed, but did as Harry asked, then turning back to everyone and asking, "So...where to next?"

Harry could tell she was afraid, but appreciated her effort not to make him think she was uncomfortable with him. "My new snake is going to the graveyard, but that likely doesn't have rats in it. I figure once we get to Spinner's End, he can hunt. But first..."

Harry looked up at Professor Snape's shimmering essence, not exactly certain of the look on his face but not needing to suss it out for now. "I keep my promise."

...TBC...


	2. Differences

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own all, though at the moment Rowling gets all the credit. Death Cab for Cutie. "Plans.". Atlantic, 2005.

**Summary:** Yes, he cared about the welfare of all of us as students, but he cared more about that _Greater Good_, didn't he? He just couldn't let go of that.

**Notes:** There will not be any CAPSLOCK!Harry, but damned close...

**Further Notes:** I do not hate Dumbledore. I actually feel very, very sorry for him. As a result of his actions, I don't think he ever truly had any close relationships or friends after Grindelwald and compensated for that loneliness by throwing himself into the mission of destroying Voldemort; especially out of guilt that he should (because he certainly could have) done something to prevent Tom from ever going down the path that he did.

Instead Dumbledore chose near-apathy and allowed the darker natures of his students to run roughshod over them. The only one to defeat this lesser nature was Harry, though by all rights it should have been history repeating itself. He believed in giving his students personal choice about every facet of their lives and that's not the way to treat a child or, to quote Augusten Burroughs, 'all life is, is a series of surprises'.

In the end, the students under Dumbledore's care, and indeed the wizarding world, have very little support, emotional or otherwise. This is very, very dangerous.

I'd like to explore in this story how Harry _didn't_ succumb to the overwhelming impetus he had not to care about anyone or anything and where he got that 'power the Dark Lord knows not', being love. After all, given canon, there is absolutely no overkill possible here, nor can any one idea be overused, especially when it seems so true given the evidence we've been shown.

Part II: Differences

"Wait!" Neville's voice echoed across the grounds right as Harry and Hermione prepared to Apparate, each of them taking either Snape's body or Neville, and the pair of them turned back around. "I've got to call Luna - she would want to go and...and...I..." Neville took a deep breath, trying not to fall apart again at the thought. "I just got her back..."

Both Harry and Hermione's eyes widened but Snape's translucent form showed little surprise in Harry's view.

Apparently, he'd deduced Neville and Luna's relationship over the past year they'd been gone. Harry found himself smiling a bit.

"Luna would probably love to pick something for your funeral, Professor, something garish and bright and cheerful. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Harry grinned wickedly, ignoring Snape's sudden scowl, and Hermione's faint elbowing of his side as a muffled giggle sounded, as well. "Besides, we were just about to go haring off without even putting on my Cloak and while no one can really see Professor Snape, the same can't be said for the rest of us. It'll be a madhouse in Godric's Hollow if I'm right."

"Not really," Neville reasoned, gaining a nod from Hermione. "Everyone's pretty much in shock at the moment, just enjoying being with their families. The all-out partying will come later if my gran is to be believed. Speaking of which..."

Neville fired off another Patronus and, sure enough, one returned quickly, telling him to watch his neck and remember to use the potions and salves Madam Pomfrey had given him for his wounds.

"I'll see you soon, Neville, dear," Augusta Longbottom's Patronus finished before fading away. A small smile graced Neville's battered face now and he nodded, himself. as the Patronus dissipated.

"See you, Gran. Alright, I'm almost ready to go..."

Harry nodded to Neville, "Call Luna up, mate."

Neville's relieved, happy grin was all the confirmation Harry needed that it was the thing to do. Within moments, Neville's own Patronus was streaking up to the school and soon after, Luna, herself, was dashing over toward them.

She was rather out of breath when she reached them, but Harry noticed that her injuries and malnutrition from being trapped in Malfoy Mansion had largely been reversed. He figured the time in Shell Cottage being stuffed silly by Fleur as well as care from Madam Pomfrey over the past day or so had helped tremendously.

Luna looked straight at Neville, smiling pleasantly after she'd got her breath and silent words of comfort were obviously being traded because within seconds, Neville's worry evaporated.

Luna opened her bag and pulled out several vials of potions, which she promptly handed to both Harry and Hermione, with Harry getting the lion's share.

"Hello, Harry, Hermione. Madam Pomfrey made me promise to give these to the two of you. Especially you, Harry.

"She says you've taken what your relatives do to you and added being trampled on by dozens of Death Eaters, Voldemort, an evil werewolf, a dragon, and Merlin only knows what else over months. She'd lecture you, but she feels it's a wasted effort at this point."

Harry sighed irritably as he heard Snape both snort and growl something angrily under his breath beside him. Forcing himself not to roll his eyes, Harry took the vials and went to put them in a bag when he remembered that Hermione had the purse with everything they'd used in it.

Without a thought, Hermione took the majority of them and cast Unbreakable Charms on them before placing them inside her purse with everything else.

Luna broke in before she could finish, however, "Madam Pomfrey also stipulated that you each drink at least one before _haring off wherever you're going now..._ - Harry, you're to drink at least three." Harry's mouth dropped open for a second before he realized none of this was actually a surprise.

Giving in to rolling his eyes, Harry took three of the vials back from Hermione and swiftly drank all three of his prescriptions before Vanishing the empty bottles back to the Hospital Wing.

"Alright," he stated irreverently while watching Hermione drink her single prescription and suddenly feeling stronger than he had in months. "Hermione's probably got an itinerary all mapped out in her head already, so..."

Harry drifted off as suddenly, he noticed both Ron and Ginny dashing toward them the way Luna had come.

_Shite_, he thought, shoving out a frustrated breath. _Just great._

"You're just going to - " Ron started yelling before he and Ginny had even stopped running but Harry was cut off from saying anything by Hermione rounding on him angrily and snapping, "NO. _No_, you do not get to go around dictating or questioning anything Harry and I do after we had to go about all over the country without you because you didn't have your usual six tons of bacon every morning for breakfast! Don't you _dare_!"

Ron and Ginny both froze, Ron turning white so quickly that Harry thought he might pass out, but instead of stopping, Hermione simply plowed onward. "Do you even know what we had to go through? Did you even _care_?"

"Hermione, I said - "

"You never said you were _sorry_. You said we didn't want any more Dobbys and I was mad enough to lose my head and actually kiss you - for all I know, the second the four of us leave, you'll turn around and start complaining that we left you behind! You. Have. No. Right. You and I aren't together. It was just a kiss. I kissed Viktor, too - oh, right, you know him better as 'Vicki'. Oh, and let's not forget your happy little feel-fest with Lavender - I can't _believe_ I let that get to me! I owe you _nothing_, Ronald Weasley, absolutely nothing."

Harry though she might be losing steam, finally, but it turned out she was only taking a breath. "And let's not forget that this rubbish goes back to _first year_! None of why we even know you makes sense! Trust me, I've had plenty of time to think about it, what with you stomping off and getting yourself Snatched.

"Why would Mrs. Weasley, who'd dropped five sons off at Platform 9 3/4 and was sending off a sixth suddenly forget the platform number - there's nothing wrong with her memory! And then you suddenly show up in Harry's compartment saying the rest of the train was full! That was a bloody lie and you know it! You just wanted to sit next to _Harry Potter_! At least Fred and George were honest about their intentions - at least Ginny was. You just lied. Who told you to lie, Ron?"

Harry found himself openmouthed in shock and glanced at both Professor Snape and Neville to find them both just as gobsmacked as he was.

"Hermione - "

"WHO," Hermione's voice was frigid and instantly Ron stopped trying to make excuses or get out of it somehow.

"Mum said...Mum said that Dumbledore wanted us to show Harry around the wizarding world. Make friends with him since he didn't know any other wizards."

"I knew Hagrid," Harry interrupted and beside him Snape snorted again, but Harry ignored it.

"That's just it, Harry," Hermione turned to him now. "Hagrid didn't tell you anything really _useful_, did he? I mean, he did, but not enough so you'd actually know what you were doing. Dumbledore wanted to make sure you had to lean on someone when you got here and who better than the Weasleys?

"They're as loyal to Dumbledore as anybody and, more than anything, Mrs. Weasley wasn't going to question anything Dumbledore told her and he counted on that. He used them."

For the first time since her tirade started, Hermione turned compassionate eyes on Ginny. "He used all of you, especially you, Ginny - I'm positive that he could have done something about the diary - he knew Draco Malfoy was trying to kill him, after all, every shoddy attempt.

"Why wouldn't he know what was happening to you? He cared more about ascertaining that the diary was a Horcrux and if you had to die to make that happen, then so be it. Well, really, how better to _test_ Harry and make sure he's got the stuff the rest of the Wizarding world, according to Albus Dumbledore, doesn't?

"After that, it was just a matter of steering all of us around. He wanted to make sure everything was in place when he finally needed things to be - last night. Yes, he cared about the welfare of all of us as students, but he cared more about that _Greater Good_, didn't he? He just couldn't let go of that. Or else, why would Harry would _ever_ have been left with his aunt and uncle, Dumbledore knowing perfectly well how they mistreat him?

"With you, he let Lucius Malfoy give you that diary just so he could get his hands on it. So he could make sure it was a Horcrux and Harry could destroy it. That was Harry's _second_ mission. His first was the Philosopher's Stone. Ever since Harry came here, Dumbledore was taking advantage of the fact that Horcruxes tend to react to their makers. Harry could not ignore Voldemort. If it were only because of his parents, then Neville would have been just as - as malleable. But Dumbledore didn't gain Neville's confidence. Neville wasn't a Horcrux.

"I'll bet he had you speak to Hagrid above all just _so_ you'd think so badly of Slytherin, there was no chance that you'd want to go into that House. You could have _changed_ them, Harry - none of the elder Slytherins stayed when McGonagall told them to leave...Snape was forced to be the bad man everyone already assumed and it was _so easy to_. Easy, because of his House's history, his own, and because of everyone else's assumptions. Like there isn't elitism in any other Houses - Hufflepuff _and_ Slytherin get the dirt end of the stick all the time and no one's willing to change that - but imagine if _Harry Potter_ had come here without any bias whatsoever - Harry, you have qualities for every single House here. But Dumbledore wanted you in Gryffindor because it was what was expected and that made it easier to keep an eye on you. But imagine if you'd gone into Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff...or Slytherin..."

Hermione finally took a breath and watched Harry and Neville's stunned faces, Luna's knowing one, wondering what Professor Snape's own face looked like at that moment.

Harry was completely taken aback now, glancing up at Snape and becoming even moreso astonished to see Snape's face contorted in anger and contempt, just as it had been the night he'd been _forced_ to kill Dumbledore. Snape had known at least some of it.

"It's true," he whispered, placing his hand over his own heart and gripping his robes. "He asked me over and over when we were...on the other side, if I could forgive him. I should have realized just how much he was asking forgiveness for."

"But...well, I'm sure he had a good reason - " Ron started but Hermione glared at him again.

"Ron, how did you get the Chamber of Secrets open again?"

Ron began to get worked up now, "I told you, I went to the bathroom - you were there! I just - "

"Mimicked Harry speaking Parseltongue," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "Parseltongue is a hereditary magical ability - Harry doesn't even realize he's not speaking English most of the time when he talks to snakes.

"I think...I think Hogwarts...she joined in the fight when it came to getting the Death Eaters out. I think she wanted those Dark objects out of her belly. I think she simply opened, just like the Room All of Lost Things when we needed it. It practically flew open.

"The furniture was Professor McGonagall, sure, but the house elves...who commanded them to fight? I think _Hogwarts_ commanded her army."

Ron was grasping at straws, trying to think of something to say, but nothing was coming to him. "So, what? You've just - you're evening the board, now, are you? Leaving me?"

"Oh, give over, Ron," Harry snapped now, instantly coming out of his near-stupor. "How many times have you all but told Hermione or I to get fecked over the years? How many times have Ickle Ronniekins' feelings been hurt or things didn't go the way he expected so he tossed either or both of us to the side?"

Ron's mouth gaped open and shut multiple times, but he didn't answer and Harry continued, "I took it because I figured it was better than I was getting from the Dursleys, but you know what? It's _worse_ - it's worse and I'll bet Hermione feels the same given how she and I were both treated in primary school, like we were only good for homework or chores and not bloody anything else - it's worse because they, prats that we went to school with, were at least honest. They hated our damned guts."

Harry grunted loudly and ran his hands roughly through his filthy hair.

Next to him, he heard Hermione sigh and gently say, "Harry, let me..." Without even a thought, Harry paused and Hermione, then Luna began to gently clean him as they had Snape's body.

Soon enough, Harry was clean and freshened, his clothes swapped for something he'd never seen before. He glanced at Hermione with a tiny smile. Blinking, Hermione actually blushed.

"Er, I saw some stuff in Vauxhall Road the last time my parents and I were in London before we went to Diagon Alley. I thought you could use something new for once."

Harry smiled wider in thanks and then turned back to find Ron staring angrily at each of them. "You - "

Instantly, the slight cheer evaporated.

"Oh, _what_, Ron?" Harry yelled now, throwing caution to the wind. "Crookshanks ate something of yours? Oh, wait, he's in Australia with Hermione's mum and dad! My Firebolt's in Hermione's bag, here, and perfectly undamaged! There's no Triwizarding Tournament for someone to enter me in to try and kill me but, oh yeah, I can see where you'd think I just want more glory - I killed Voldemort, after all! You forget that I watched both Dumbledore _and_ Snape die! You were there for Snape, so even you can't despute that!

"Oh, right, you didn't see the memories he gave me - I guess he _is_ still nothing but a Death Eater to you! You and Lavender aren't going out anymore, Ginny and I aren't going out anymore, you gave up on Hermione and I _again_ and walked away from us - "

"I came back and saved your stinking, ungrateful life!" Ron roared before stopping himself short and blinking, staring and his mouth opening and closing for a few moments before Harry smirked, "Gee, that sounds a lot like what you told Malfoy back there before you hit him. Do you want to kick me, Ron?"

This was said with a distinctly mocking tone that Harry had never used on anyone but Dudley. For the first time since he'd known him, Harry didn't care that it was Ron he was talking to.

"I've had enough of you deciding you don't want to be around me or Hermione for some idiotic reason and then suddenly realizing no one wants to hang around you because of how unpleasant you can be and generally _are_. Even Ginny - your own sister - has told you as much. You're selfish, self-centered, whingy, and an arse. Give me one good reason why we should take you with us, Ron."

Ron was now very pale, in constrast with Harry's flushed, angered face. Both were breathing hard, but Harry was obviously still waiting for an answer. He raised an eyebrow before flinging his hands up, "Well? Sometime today, Ron!"

Ron blinked, tears actually coming to his already red-rimmed eyes, and he took in a shuddering breath. "You...said on the train, first year, that I was the...the coolest person you'd ever met." Ron blinked again and the tears fell.

Harry continued to stare but now calmly, tiredly, back at him. "Maybe if you'd remembered that I already thought that about you, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Hermione shuddered, suddenly, and bit her lip. "You know, Ron...maybe...maybe conquering a troll wasn't anything to build a friendship on. Maybe it was sticking by one another when things got tricky and suspicious or crazy...and you just couldn't do that for us.

"Harry's right, we - he and I already went through too much of being abandoned and used and treated like an annoyance or outright rubbish, though he got far more of it than I did. You couldn't treat us like friends, like we deserved, like we used to trust you."

Ron stared back at Hermione and Harry, his mouth trembling as more tears came. "But...but I _do_ trust you."

"The hell you do," Harry sneered, scoffing. "That must be why every time something happens to one of us - being Hermione or I - that you don't like, you bail on us as soon as possible. Because you trust us, because you _care_."

Ron started to say something, but then Ginny reached up and gripped his shoulder, "Whatever you're about to say, Ron, you probably shouldn't."

Ron goggled at her. "You're okay with this! I can't believe - you're just fine - " he jabbered, incoherent with anger and discomfort.

Ginny took a deep breath so as not to start screaming at her brother, "Harry's right, he and I are broken up and you gave up on any chance with Hermione when you walked out on them. If she dated or married you now, that'd mean she didn't respect herself at all."

Now Ginny's face had hardened and she reached back and punched Ron hard in the shoulder, causing him to yelp loudly. "You missed out on half a slab of meat a day, so you ran off like a snivelling little git. Well, now you've got what's coming to you. Besides, if I know Harry and Hermione, Neville and Luna - and it seems I know them better than you do - they're off to do something pretty bloody important right now."

"What - what could be more important than what's already happened?" Ron yelled and Neville stepped up then, glancing where he knew Professor Snape's spirit was, "None of your bloody business, Ron. If Hermione and Harry wanted you to know, they'd've told you by now."

"Oh, yeah, does Luna know?" Luna turned to Ron and, for the first time in their acquaintance, Ron saw her look angry. "If I did, Ronald, what would be the point in telling you? You're quite mean, you know."

Ron scowled, resisting the urge to fold his arms. "Right, everything's about what a mean git I am - "

"If the shoe fits," Ginny said in a falsely absent tone.

"Shut _up!_"

"Excellent reason why we should bring you along. Goodbye, Ron," Harry said in a quietly sardonic tone before turning to Ginny. "Thanks for being understanding. I...like I said before...I don't know if you and I will meet up again or if what you wanted will come true. I just know I need to be away from this world for a while. Hermione and I both have felt that way about certain things for quite a while.

"The wizarding world is great, but...I was raised a Muggle, Ginny. There are just some things you and I will never get about each other and if we do ever get back together, I don't want those things to tear us apart, or make us fight constantly like Hermione and Ron. Hermione's right, that's not friendship nor is it love. If they ever were married in this world, I doubt Hermione would like to spend those years fighting about five separate things every ten minutes. She deserves better than that and you and I _both_ deserve better than false pretenses. I just want to make sure everything's right."

Ginny sighed faintly, tears once more in her own eyes as she walked up and took the liberty of kissing Harry on the cheek, after which he blushed. "That sounds...almost logical. You have been hanging around with Hermione and nobody else. You're...different. It's sweet."

Ginny took another breath, this time more deeply. "I can wait."

"Ginny, if you meet someone and they make you happy - "

Ginny chuckled sadly, "I promise if that happens, you'll be the first to get a wedding invitation, assuming I know where you are."

Harry smiled back just as morosely, "You'll be at the top of my change of address alert list. Well, I mean, after Hermione, Neville, and Luna simply by default."

Ginny smiled, hugged Harry tightly and finally said, "Goodbye, Harry. I hope you're happy wherever you're going."

"Working on it," Harry said gently before stepping back and sighing. "See you if it's at all possible. We should go. We've been extremely rude."

Neville chuckled darkly, nodding to Hermione and Luna both, who each stepped up to join himself, Harry, and what had to be Snape's incorporeal form. Hermione was carefully handling Snape's body and keeping it out of Ron's line of sight.

Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of his pocket and threw it around all of them, Harry and Hermione both taking hold of either Neville or Luna's arms and Harry removing the Stone so Snape's spirit could vanish of his own accord.

Before they Side-Along Apparated, Harry heard Snape whisper, _"That had to be very diffcult, P...Harry. My sincere apologies."_

Harry's breath hitched, but other than that he gave no sign of having heard the professor, which suited the other man just fine.

Then there was a series of loud cracks, Harry and Hermione's being more quiet what with having practiced so often, and they were suddenly surrounded by stones of varying ages, most of whom were ancient.

"Well, here we are," Harry announced, feeling rather sad yet again, "Godric's Hollow's Cemetery."

Harry threw the Cloak off the bunch of them and stuffed it back into his pocket. "I think what we're searching for is right about..." He began walking and within mere minutes, this time, found Dumbledore's mother's headstone. "Right, further up front, straight in this direction."

And almost immediately, it seemed to him, he was standing once more before his parents' graves, this time quite glad for the large space surrounding them.

"Okay," Harry said bracingly as he placed the Resurrection Stone on his finger. "Here we are, Professor."

Again retrieving his holly wand, as well, Harry conjured a set of four shovels. Snape stared at him, plainly shocked.

"Potter, what - you don't - "

Harry pointedly ignored this burgeoning objection as he passed the shovels around to Hermione and the others. With that, the four of them set to work, the only wand work being done to make sure they didn't make a huge mess moving around so much earth.

Once the right side next to Lily Evans-Potter's grave was dug open, Hermione cancelled the protection spell on Snape's body and instead conjured a marble slab box reminiscent of Dumbledore's own and gently Levitated Snape's body into it.

At this point, both Hermione and Luna were crying and Neville was comforting them as best as he was able, despite tears of his own coming to his eyes and blinding him, it would seem. Harry immediately flashed back to Neville carrying Colin Creevey's body and shuddered horribly as a sob managed to break through and he finally allowed himself to cry for the first time in years.

Snape's translucent form looked beside himself with bother, obviously fishing for words that would make these four students, three of whom he had but tortured, stop wasting such sentiment on he, the most undeserving person in each of their lives for so long, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

So he simply watched, arms now unconsciously wrapped around himself as he watched Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Luna together use their wands to move the large amount of earth they'd dug up (and were now covered in from head to toe) back over the marble box and Harry finally removed the Resurrection Stone and allowed Snape to fade away.

"Goodbye, Professor Severus Snape. In your own way, you were a constant. Your feet on all our necks kept us all alive. Thank you," Harry said quietly, wishing for something more profound to say.

He wished he knew more languages than English, was more competent in Latin - something better than the meager silence that was all he could give Professor Snape now. Before he knew it, Hermione was whispering something on his left side.

He leaned in to listen further and found she was praying, _"Our Father, Who Art in Heaven...Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done...On Earth, as it is in Heaven...Give us this day, our daily bread...and forgive us our trespassers, as we forgive..."_

Here, Hermione sniffled heavily and stuttered slightly, _"T-th-those who trespass against us...And lead us not into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil...For Thine is the Power, the Kingdom, and the Glory...Forever and Ever, In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen."_

With another swish of her wand, Hermione conjured a headstone and carved _'Requiescat in pace'_ into it, followed by Harry carving Professor Snape's name, birthdate, and death-date into it.

Neville subsequently carved a conflagration of snakes all around the outer edge of the stone, and Luna finished it off by bringing forth several different colors of lilies, the most prominent being asphodel, to bloom constantly as long as the grave stood.

Suddenly, something came to mind for Harry and he conjured at last a tiny set of female deer rather like the model Hungarian Horntail he'd received nearly four years prior and placed a small fence and transparent magical guard around them so they wouldn't wander or get blown away. Together, the deer each wandered around atop Lily Evans-Potter and Severus Snape's graves.

"There. There," he whispered. "Goodbye, Professor. I-I'll miss you." A breeze fluttered through the cemetery then, ruffling the lillies, and Harry knew he'd been heard.

_...If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied...Illuminate the 'NOs' on their vacancy signs...If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark..._

...TBC...


	3. Missed  A

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own all, though at the moment Rowling gets all the credit. The Decemberists. "The Crane Wife.". Capitol, 2006.

**Summary:** "I dunno. I'll get that figured out in time, I guess. For now, we've got to go."

**Notes:** Yes, Ron annoys the crap out of me, but I'd like to try to be fair because he is still (ostensibly, since he's fictional like everyone else written about around here...) human, ergo, imperfect. No, Ron is anything but a Gary Stu.

**Notes, cont'd.** This chapter will be posted in three parts because it's a bit on the long side. *nods*

Part III: Missed - A

_...Will you make a grave? I will be home then..._

Harry wiped his eyes one final time before turning and listening quietly, hissing very quietly and waiting for his snake's response. Finally, some distance to the west, he heard...ah, Harry still hadn't thought of a name for him yet!

Running his hand through his now-clean hair, he glanced up at the sky and saw the stars were starting to come out. Stars. Sirius' entire family were named after stars, as far as he knew.

Sighing heavily, he looked for one of the only constellations he knew of off-hand - Hermione retained this stuff year after year far better than he ever had - Betelguese and gave his head a shake. _It's up to him,_ he thought. _If he likes the name, I won't object. Besides, he's a snake, not a person._

Harry began softly tromping away from the rest of their small group, careful not to trod on the graves of anyone if he could help it, and finally found Betelguese lurking in his terrarium near the dilapidated headstone of Ignotus Peverell.

_There you are_, Harry hissed in joyous reunion. _How would you like the name Betelguese. It's a gathering of those tiny lights up there. They're called constellations - made of stars._

Betelguese hissed with some mild displeasure. _I am pleased with that name, but you humans have too many names for things. You are too forgetful for your own good. Couldn't you just smell things and tell their difference?_

Harry sighed, his smile widening regardless. _Our noses are less powerful than yours are unless we choose to change form into an animal like you. We can't smell the differences between things unless they're really smelly and even then we don't like it very much. We're not used to it and it's unpleasant._

_That is silly_, Betelguese somehow sighed. _How do you tell other humans from yourself?_ Harry sighed back. _We use our eyes and even then - before you say anything - they're not as powerful as an animal's. Before you say so, yes, we are a rather ineffectual lot if you look at it that way, but we find ways to make do and get around things. That's what makes humans special. We find ways to solve our problems instead of whinging about what can't be helped._

Betelguese hissed wordlessly as Harry opened his terrarium and let him slither up his arm. _Anyway, there's sloths - they live in a place very far away - but they're really much worse off than humans by your standard. I found information about them once when I was...a hatchling. Their eyesight and senses of smell and hearing are so poor, they have to rely on letting parasites and moss grow all over them so they blend into their home. They also live in the trees. That's why predators have a hard time getting to them unless they fall to the ground. Unfortunately, that seems to happen a lot, but - again - they make do._

Betelguese vibrated against Harry's skin, which Harry supposed was him sighing in resignation again, but he said no more so Harry Shrunk his terrarium and put it in his pocket and turned to walk back to the others.

_Did you enjoy your meal?_ Betelguese hummed again, this time sighing with pleasure. _It was most delicious. I would like another one._

Harry sighed, himself, this time, and shook his head even though Betelguese couldn't see him. _Perhaps soon. Like I said, we have to go somewhere. You'll be able to hunt there._ Betelguese sighed yet again, this time in irritation, but Harry ignored him in favor of rejoining his friends. He began to walk slowly back toward the main of their group, who seemed to have been having a discussion in his absence.

Hermione started to say something, but managed to stop herself, and Harry found himself smirking. "Gee, that wouldn't be a vote for Spinner's End in favor of seeing my mum's Advanced Potion's Book, would it? You're so easy."

Hermione obviously fought to stick out her tongue in the middle of a cemetery even as everyone else largely managed to keep from laughing at her. "Harry Potter, you are insufferable."

"If I'm so insufferable," Harry objected, faking indignation. "What have these last seven years been about? Or have you got a doppelgängerhidden somewhere?"

"Considering sixth year, I'm inclined to say 'yes'," Hermione moaned miserably, but Luna reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.

"Luna - your dad," Hermione asked as the thought obviously just came to her. "Wouldn't you want to be with him at the moment? You and Neville, I mean?"

Luna returned her question with a saddened and angry look on her face yet again, though, before saying, "Considering what he told me about giving you and Harry - and Ron - up to the Snatchers, I'm not much in a mood to talk to my dad at the moment. He should have known better."

"I _told_ him that was an Erumpment Horn," Hermione complained inwardly at the memory. "Well, is he badly burned, the - "

"Prat? Idiot? Dunce? Dolt? Or just desperately mad as a hatter?" Luna sighed, merely blinking at the astonished expressions on the faces of everyone around her. "He did what he did in my name. I don't appreciate it. It almost got my friends killed. How would that have made me happy even if it had gotten me home? I'd've run away."

Harry went to give Luna a hug, as did Hermione, but both paused in deference to Neville, who surprisingly nodded and they all hugged her at once.

"This is even better than the D.A.," Luna said happily from within their embraces before giggling. "Harry, your snake is tickling my arm with his tongue."

Harry yelped before jumping back a bit. "Er, he...Betelguese is smelling you. I guess he wanted to see what all this fuss is about."

"So you've named him," Hermione noted with a sad smile at the reference. Harry nodded and again removed Betelguese from his sleeve, showing him off for a few moments before reaching back into his pocket and extracting the Shrunken terrarium.

"Well, since Hermione will die if she doesn't get to see my mum's book, I guess it's off to Spinner's End next. Everyone Side-Alonging again or..."

"I don't have my license yet, remember?" Luna said calmly and Harry winced.

"Right, sorry. Er. Okay, Luna, I guess you and Neville will be Side-Alonging. Perhaps Hermione and I'll go on ahead just to make sure everything's clear. It's a Muggle neighborhood so actually - if anyone's got cloaks or is okay with Hermione conjuring some, we can be on our way rather quickly. We'd just have to make sure no one sees us once we're there. If we can get as close to the front door as possible, that'd be great."

"None of us have ever seen it, Harry," Hermione pointed out the seeming flaw in his logic, but Harry shook his head, knowing a solution.

"I saw it in Snape's head a couple of times during the Occlumency lessons he was supposed to be giving me." Harry frowned a bit then. "I've got to find a way to finish learning that. It'd just be useful."

"Luna and I'll help," Hermione volunteered, still ashamed of her alienation of Harry that year and refusal to pay more attention to him in favor of hers and Ron's mutual asinine behavior.

"If that's the case, I should probably learn, too," Neville pointed out, scratching his hair. "Harry's right - it's useful and if the Ministry was right about those offers they sent us, Aurors benefit from knowing it."

Harry frowned at this and paused, sighing. "I...I'm not sure I want to be an Auror anymore, to tell you the truth. More to do with the Ministry and they've shown me enough of their faces and moods to last me a lifetime."

Hermione was definitely frowning and even Luna and Neville both looked dismayed. "True. Well, what do you think you'll do?"

"I dunno. I'll get that figured out in time, I guess. For now, we've got to go."

Harry bent down carefully and placed the terrarium on the ground before returning it to its original size and replacing Betelguese inside it and then returning it to its smaller form and putting it back away. The others nodded and with that they all Disapparated.

It wasn't exactly an organized fashion, how they all ended up in Spinner's End. It was lucky, however, that since Harry's mental image of Snape's former home had been from the inside, they didn't end up as a heap in the gutter.

Groaning and otherwise complaining about their landing, Harry and the others all climbed slowly to their feet before taking in the sight of Snape's sitting room for themselves. Every wall except the door behind them was crammed to bursting with books of similar color and binding.

"I wonder how he told them apart," Luna said lightly as she dusted herself off and immediately went to one of the many bookshelves. Harry could see Hermione itching to do the same so he turned and nodded to a now even more disheveled Neville and, after pointing out his once more bleeding lip and fixing it, the pair of them set off for the bookshelf Snape's spirit had indicated.

It wasn't long, thankfully, before Harry once again spotted a book he would never forget as long as he lived and carefully lifted it from the books on either side before flipping it open and feeling his breath catch in his chest. "This is it. This is the Half-Blood Prince's book," he whispered, gently showing it to Neville, who's eyes widened. "Everything I've learned about Potions was in this book. Snape might not have been a good teacher, but he was a hell of a note-taker and it was his corrections that helped me every step of the way."

"Blimey," Neville whispered, fingering one of Snape's many cramped notations in the margins. "Was this the only copy?" Harry blinked, suddenly curious himself, and again retrieved his wand. "We can find out."

Harry glanced back to see both Hermione and Luna each seated back on the floor or in a chair, their faces buried in one of Snape's many, many books. "It's not like they're within a million kilometers of here right now. They're _learning_."

At Neville's chuckle, Harry bit his lip and thought, _Accio Severus Snape's Advanced Potions Making copies!_ before waiting for a reaction.

Within moments, several books flew off the shelves and landed in a jumble at Harry and Neville's feet.

"There's about six here, I reckon," Neville muttered, glancing back at their still-reading companions, who didn't seem to have noticed a thing. "Enough for the four of us and two extra copies. You should save those somewhere, I'd guess."

Harry looked at Neville in surprise, but Neville was resolute. "Snape brought us here for you, about your mum, and about you. Yeah, he's apologizing to Hermione and I, but most of this is for you."

Harry tried to think of a rebuttal but nothing would come to mind. Eventually he sighed in semi-frustration and bent down to manually gather the copies into a stack and carry them back over to Hermione and Luna. He cleared his throat and, when that didn't work, said loudly, "Will all bookworms please report to the physical world? There are gifts to be given!"

Both Hermione and Luna jumped in fright and Neville held in a chuckle before wincing at the pain that shot through his cheek to do so.

Sighing, he then spoke, "Snape made copies of his Potions book. We've got enough for all four of us. Harry gets the extra two. This is about him. We're going to find Harry's mum's book now, Hermione, if you're still interested in..."

Neville trailed off with a small grin when he watched as Hermione leapt to her feet and began glancing around as if the book would just show itself all of a sudden and proclaim that it had been playing hide and seek and Hermione was now 'It'.

"Neville, if you will," Harry grinned, not bothering to hide his amusement at all.

"I shall," Neville agreed before brandishing his wand and thinking, _Accio Lily Evans' Advanced Potions Making copies!_

Two books flew off the shelves and thudded one after the other into Neville's chest before falling to the floor in front of him. They were each in considerably better condition than either of Snape's books. Harry and Hermione each bent carefully to retrieve one for themselves, noticing that even after all this time the binding on both books was in excellent condition despite having obviously been graffitiied all over most of the pages.

"One for each of us," Harry whispered, remembering what Snape had told him. He sighed and bit his lip. "I wish...hm. Snape didn't say I_couldn't_ duplicate the books, myself. It seems unfair that neither you, Neville, nor especially you, Luna, don't get to have a copy."

"Harry..." Neville started, but Harry shook his head.

"They probably shared notes, yeah, but maybe my mum found some stuff that Snape didn't and vice versa. We could owl each other and talk about what's different in each book. And, Hermione, if I ever get a computer, you and I can email each other about the same thing. And if we go to the library, we could even Xerox pages and send them to each other - or maybe I could fax them to you if your parents have a fax machine."

Hermione was desperate not to look at Neville for fear of bursting into laughter at what would likely be an incredibly confused expression on his face. Luna simply listened as though she knew what they were talking about and, for all either of them knew, she did, if any Muggleborn Ravenclaws had been willing to talk to her at all. Either way, if she was perplexed, it didn't show.

Harry and Hermione began debating the ethics of the situation but then Luna gently cut in with a quiet clearing of her throat.

"Knowledge is meant to be shared. Snape, even if he would have much rather been in a laboratory, and I'm guessing your mum, Harry, knew that. I honestly don't think they would have minded or Snape wouldn't have gone about handing us copies of his book, nor pointed out that Harry's mum had one of her own at all."

Harry blinked before smiling with satisfaction and leaning backward slightly, "Thank you, Luna."

Hermione sighed and, as much as it obviously bothered her to do so, conceded the point to the others.

"Great!" Harry cheered before flicking his wand one at a time at each duplicate of his mother's book that was created from the original two.

Soon there were six, just like with Snape's own copies. "There. Now, that's done..."

Harry looked outside to see that it had gotten very dark in the intervening hours and a light rain was starting to pour. Memories of not being properly dry for months and not being able to do anything about it ran through his head and Harry shuddered involuntarily. He glanced at Hermione to see her pale, herself.

"Er, perhaps we should spend the night here and then figure things out in the morning," Harry proposed before flinching suddenly and then digging his hand into his pocket to again retrieve Betelguese's terrarium and return it and him to their actual sizes.

___Sorry about that_, he hissed gently, horribly embarrassed._It's going to rain, but I can Transfigure you another mouse if you like..._  


Betelguese seemingly snorted,_ You humans, still so concerned with so many things. As if I could not find shelter myself. Kindly put me down._

Harry sighed and blinked in contemplation of his snake's 'I can do anything just because I think I can' attitude, but did as Betelguese asked.  
Stalking ahead of Betelguese and opening the door just enough for the snake to exit, Harry closed it and sighed.

"He's...so full of himself. I hope he doesn't get himself hurt with that pride of his."

"Or chased by a cat," Luna supplied and Harry reluctantly smiled. "It's not as if he can run. Do you know if he's poisonous?"

"As far as I know, he's not, so - yeah, I hope he's not getting himself into trouble out there."

"Hopefully, you'll be able to find him if he does," Hermione said tiredly.

"Or he can find me," Harry yawned. "Right. So, we all staying here?"

Everyone nodded and wordlessly dispersed to look for bedrooms. "Maybe we can call Kreacher tomorrow for breakfast," Harry whispered to Hermione and she nodded and yawned again.

Elsewhere in England, Ron Weasley was trying to remember how to deflect rain with magic while staring in shock and shivering as he stood over the graves of three people he never thought would rest side by side, let alone with Harry and Hermione's help - especially Harry's! James Potter, Lily Potter, and -Snape!

Ron had stewed for quite a while before suddenly remembering he still had the Deluminator Dumbledore had given him and remembering he could track Harry and Hermione with it. Assuming Harry still had his Cloak at the very least, Ron began clicking the Deluminator and Apparating toward the light it threw off in the distance. That light had led him here, of all places.

"M-M-Merlin," Ron shivered, completely disbelieving of the sheer lengths they'd gone to for the peaky bastard. Soon after his arrival, however, it had begun to rain and Ron could not afford to stand around in a cemetery all night, wondering when his friends - or former friends, it seemed - had all gone so barmy.

For now, he glanced around, realizing there was a pub nearby down from the church next to where he stood and Ron hurried as fast as he could to the pub, praying it was still open. Overwhelmingly relieved when the door wasn't locked, Ron realized he didn't have any Muggle money like Harry or Hermione might and so he simply asked the barman if he could sit down until the rain ended and get warm.

Luckily for him, the man said 'yes' and Ron sank into a nearby chair, letting his arms and head drop onto the table. He just couldn't believe they'd up and leave him for _Snape_...

He never noticed when he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, nor when the barman draped a blanket over his shoulders, casting a charm on the fire to keep it going and try to warm Ron up.

...TBC...


	4. Missed  B

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own all, though at the moment Rowling gets all the credit. Bayside. "Sirens and Condolences.". Victory, 2004.

**Summary:** Harry had said goodbye to Ginny, not 'see you later'. He wasn't coming back and she'd known it. Even if Hermione, Luna, and Neville did, Harry never would.

**Notes:** Yes, Ron annoys the crap out of me, but I'd like to try to be fair because he is still (ostensibly, since he's fictional like everyone else written about around here...) human, ergo, imperfect. No, Ron is anything but a Gary Stu.

**Notes, cont'd.** This chapter was a fun little adventure in sacrifice and chosen forgiveness. At least I like to think Harry forgave them...

Part III: Missed - B

_...I'll never waste another second, I have wasted so much time..._

Ron's body straightened with a sickening series of pops as he was jarred out of strange dream where Harry, Hermione, and the rest of his friends had done a runner to go bury Snape of all bastards.

Blinking and looking around, Ron realized he was still sitting at the table he'd gotten at the inn at Godric's Hollow after leaving...the cemetery where Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Luna had buried Snape and given him some kind of funeral.

Just thinking about what he'd found, Ron discovered his appetite had vanished through the hole now in his stomach. Breathing carefully, Ron stood and forced his body to stretch as he glanced around to see if the barman was still there. The least he could do was say 'thanks' for the night out of the rain.

But the other man had gone, leaving only the blanket Ron presumed had been draped over him at some point on the floor. Picking it up, Ron reached into his pocket and fished around for whatever Sickles or Knuts he could find, grimacing when none reached his hands.

Right, he'd come straight from the Great Hall after assuring his mother he was going to try to find Harry and Hermione, who'd gone off to do something. He hadn't intended to stay away all night, but he figured - in for a Knut, in for a Galleon and all that. As it was, there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

Frowning, Ron folded the blanket and lay it on the chair he'd gotten out of, pushing it back in. Hermione would be proud if she didn't seem to be sick of the sight of him at the moment. That thought sent another unpleasant jolt through Ron's stomach and he was suddenly assaulted with memories of the months after fifth year, wondering why he didn't see everything falling apart sooner.

He should have been proposing to Hermione last night, Harry to Ginny, not the pair of them and Neville and Luna - who had the nerve to be angry with him about her stupid, bloody Humdingers and Crumple-Horned Snobclacks or whatever - going off to _bury Snape_, who'd jumped into Harry's neck and rode him hard since first year!

And for what? So Harry looked like his dad - Ginny looked like Harry's mum! No one was going around giving her grief about it! Hell, half the school was in love with her the last time he'd...Ron shoved that thought away immediately, shaking his head and gritting his teeth. The point was that nothing had gone the way he'd wanted. Harry and Hermione both seemed to hate his guts and he had no clue why.

He'd tried so hard to win Hermione over in those months at Grimmauld Place - Ron brightened suddenly, the thought coming to him now. Grimmauld Place! Why wouldn't they be there now? There was tons of room and Harry had started to love the place. It was certainly better kept now that Kreacher wasn't off his nut.

Besides, Ron thought bitterly, there was only so long Tom the barman would allow his family to live at the Leaky Cauldron, since the Burrow had been destroyed by those damned Death Eaters sixth year Christmas holiday. Bill and Charlie were paying the bill, but the point was that Grimmauld Place was a perfectly decent place for his family to stay.

All he had to do now was find Harry and persuade him to let Ron tell his mum and dad that it'd be okay for them to live there for a while, maybe forever. It wasn't like Harry even really wanted the place - not when he had, probably, ten or whatever houses all of his own elsewhere in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland - possibly the Isle of Man - if Ron counted both the Houses of Potter and Black, which he did. Why wouldn't Harry let his family have Grimmauld Place?

He'd said he was leaving anyway and they needed somewhere to stay. If Harry gave them one of his houses, they'd probably take it. It was a gift and Harry loved his family enough to do that. Yeah.

Ron looked around the pub one last time before frowning and turning all of his pockets inside out, finally finding a handful of Knuts in an inner pocket and dropping that on the table.

"Um - thanks, sir!" he said nervously, unsure if he was talking to a wizard or a Muggle, but unable to do anything else. With that, he hurried back outside where the weather was mercifully much warmer since the storm the night before.

Drinking it in and again trying to remember the spell for drying his clothes, Ron began to walk again, now set on satisfying his curiosity about what Harry, Hermione, and the others had done with Snape's...grave...

Ron had every intention of going back to the cemetery, but became distracted when he noticed the wreckage of a house down the road from where he currently was.

Blinking in shock, it hit him suddenly that Harry's family had lived...here...here, in Godric's Hollow, before his parents had been killed.

Ron felt his mouth drop open as he stared plainly at the blasted open hulk of what had once upon a time been a house. It only vaguely resembled one now, the entire front half overgrown and, underneath the foiliage, clearly blown to pieces, its individual planks and part of a door still scattered across the ground.

Feeling ill, Ron snapped his mouth shut, recalling the statue he'd been too irritated to take much note of the previous night. It had been a...a monument to Harry's family, with - Ron twisted around and stalked back to the church and the inn next door where he'd spent the night.

He went to stand carefully in front of the statue and it, indeed, shifted form to reveal a stone replica of Lily and James Potter holding...Harry as a baby, without his famous scar. The words beneath extolled a village forever in debt to the sacrifice they'd each given - Lily and James with their lives and Harry with his unknown power that had vanquished the terror over their world.

Ron reached up before he realized it and was almost touching the statue when he snatched his hand back, afraid for some reason that the statue might have a Burning Hex on it to protect it from graffiti or something. Ron wasn't sure.

Blinking rapidly, Ron sniffed hard and glanced back at where he knew the shell of the house still stood. There had been a sign in front of that, too. He wondered terribly what it said, but was even more afraid to look for some reason. Ron found himself staring at the ground now, wishing dearly he'd never followed them here with the Deluminator Dumbledore had left him.

Had Dumbledore known he was going to do what he did? Was...was that how everyone else had always seen him and he'd simply been too busy just being around Harry to notice?

He'd certainly had Fred (_dear God_... Ron sniffled harder, this time swiping his face with his already still damp sleeve) and George's irritation with him made obvious, but at the time he'd simply assumed it was the same bother he'd always shown Ginny since she was younger than he was.

He remembered when he was the youngest, before Ginny was born, and how everyone had ignored him, then, too - he was just another boy in a whole family of them - and then when Ginny showed up, being a girl and special because his father had only brothers and his grandfather and great-grandfather and so on and so forth.

Being around Harry (_Harry Potter, of all people!_) had...made him feel special, he realized now. And even then...he'd wanted more - more attention, more...everything.

A memory so sharp and vivid - one he'd forgotten until now, though how he did, he didn't know, it was so powerful - hit him now, and suddenly he was remembering the night during Christmas holiday when he was eleven (_And let's not forget that this rubbish goes back to_first year! Hermione's anguished snarl cut into the memory, somehow making it even more sharp) and Harry had taken him to that mirror to show Ron his family. But that hadn't been what Ron had seen.

He was special, he was the best of everyone - Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George - even Ginny were all in awe of him as he'd stood on a platform, Quidditch captain, Head Boy, a prefect badge peeking out of his pocket - better than every one of them and his parents ignoring the others and showering him with all the attention he'd always wanted so badly it hurt.

He and Harry had fought that night, almost getting caught by Filch, but now he recalled, still, the look on Harry's face for days over that holiday when he'd gone to see the mirror and seen...his family.

Ron shuddered, trying not to frown, but unable to stop. Harry's words about being treated like rubbish, he and Hermione being...nothing...

Ron remembered waking up in the hospital wing after eating Harry's Christmas chocolates and having both his parents, Fred - Ron clenched his eyes shut before forcing them back open - and George, Ginny...everyone surrounding him, so happy that he was...just alive.

And all the while Ron had simply lay there being stupid, never telling them he loved them or even trying, even when his mum and dad both said it - focused only on the gifts he'd gotten when his fellow Gryffindors had found out what happened. Fred and George offering him a bunch of stuff from their shop - the perks of almost dying, something that happened to Harry regularly and without fail.

Ron felt even colder now, remembering the Third Task when Harry's family was supposed to come visit him and cheer him on. Everyone else's families had come, had met and been cheerful and betting on the outcome...Harry's aunt, uncle, and cousin had been nowhere to be found.

McGonagall hadn't even told Harry they'd _tried_ to come but couldn't because it was Hogwarts and maybe Muggles couldn't enter the grounds. They'd never bothered, Ron now realized.

He'd been so irritated that Harry got to sit out exams that year, telling his mother about how he hadn't tried very hard on his History of Magic exam...

Come to think of it, Harry had gotten that O in Defense Against the Dark Arts and E's and that A and Hermione had gotten all O's and an E and dashed off to owl her mum and dad...

But neither of them had been able to share anything with their families - Hermione because her parents were Muggles...Harry because he didn't...didn't have one.

Ron felt his stomach turn over and clenched his eyes shut again against the waves of sickness that passed over him. Harry didn't have anyone to lose to You-Know - _Voldemort_ because they were all already gone.

Hermione even told him once that she'd looked up both sides of Harry's family in the Daily Prophet and from what little Harry had told them he knew about his mother's family, his mum's parents had been killed by...by Voldemort, too. Harry had no one. He was the last of both the Potters and...the Evanses, even though they were Muggles.

Sirius had made him the last of the Blacks, but Harry was related to them, anyway, Ron knew. He was, as well, but not very closely. Harry's dad and Sirius had been second cousins. Ron's family were four or five times removed from that, he knew.

He was actually more closely related to Neville with Harry, himself, a bit more related to Luna, though Ron wasn't certain how. He was pretty sure he'd heard his mum say something once about Harry's great-grandfather and Luna's great-grandmother being cousins or something - maybe even brother and sister. Ron wasn't sure.

Maybe that was why Harry had liked Luna so much. They were more family than friends or something. Family.

Another jolt hit Ron and he almost doubled over with more nausea. Harry wouldn't know any of this, he realized, suddenly glad he hadn't eaten for once. And from what he'd said...all the time Ron had been...been jealous of Harry, Harry had been jealous of _him_. Ron, getting to_be_ a prefect, like most of his brothers, Ron having tons of brothers and a sister - a mum and dad to care.

Harry had said he'd been used for chores. Ron couldn't imagine being used for anything, let alone chores - let alone being the _Boy Who Lived_ and having to do _chores_...

He didn't want to know, really, what Harry had been talking about with him and Hermione being so terribly sad and everything before Hogwarts. He didn't want to think about how Harry had brought up every time Ron had gotten angry with one or the both of them and ditched them along with everyone else, who had just decided he was this or that because of...of stuff Harry couldn't control.

He didn't want to think of any of it, but now the thoughts wouldn't stop and Harry and Hermione didn't even want him to actually _find_ them. They'd just left, with Neville and Luna, and gone - come here and then gone elsewhere.

And neither had said a word to him about it...just like when he'd stormed off and...no, not like when he'd stormed off. They'd given him an explanation and Harry even said goodbye to Ginny. He was the one being ignored and - what was Hermione's word for this?

Ron tried to blink through his watery vision before finally giving up and swiping at his face again, the word suddenly coming to him in Hermione's bossy voice that he usually was annoyed by, but now wanted to hear more than anything.

_Ostracize._

They were ostracizing him and, from their view, giving him a taste of his own potion.

Hermione, he could guess, probably felt horrible because this was exactly what they'd done to Harry during sixth year when he'd tried to tell anyone who'd listen, especially them, that Malfoy was a Death Eater and, then, trying to kill Dumbledore.

Ron didn't know why they'd ignored Harry then, but he remembered the look on Harry's face - like it was nothing new, but he'd try anyway because it was that important.

Ron clenched his fists, glancing toward Snape's grave before he could stop himself, but not taking any more steps in any direction. He knew he'd lost the both of them anyway and chasing after them now was desperate.

Ron bit his lip. Was he desperate? He'd been desperate the moment he'd realized he couldn't find the tent not a step after leaving it. He'd been desperate when he'd listened to Hermione being tortured again and again with the Cruciatus Curse by Bellatrix Lestrange - but, then, Harry had been, too. He'd screamed just as loudly - and more hoarsely, Ron realized now - as Ron had because, in his own way, Harry had loved Hermione just as much as Ron did.

Maybe...maybe even more...because he'd known he _could_ lose her. The thought hadn't ever crossed Ron's mind, honestly. Not really. Even when he mucked up, Hermione always forgave him in the end...but so did Harry.

Harry never talked about his Muggle family and Ron had never really asked - not about Hermione's, either. Muggles were foreign - even his family didn't talk about that one cousin of his mum's who was an accountant because he was a Squib and had left to live in the Muggle world and he had never thought anything about that until just now.

Hermione said hers were dentists, whatever those were, and went on trips with them and got lots of presents from them at Christmas the few times they'd opened some of them in the Common Room. That was all Ron had cared to know. He didn't need to see what was obviously not his business.

Breathing heavily, he realized this was the same. Harry had said as much, hadn't he? Ron took another deep breath to steady himself. Harry and Hermione were both from the Muggle world and Ron honestly doubted that if Harry hadn't been the Boy Who Lived, now the _Man Who Destroyed The Dark Lord_, that anyone - let alone he, Ron - would have bothered with him.

Ron, himself, hadn't wanted to bother with Hermione when they were First Years and she had tried so hard to learn everything she could...about his world. She was magical but, in blood, she was still...a Muggle. And he'd always assumed Neville was just above being a Squib because of how poorly he'd done then, so Ron hadn't given him any attention, either. But Neville's magic was now so powerful, he outstripped Ron considerably. If Ron had gone to school for seventh year, he knew now that he would have been jealous.

_Ugly._ The word popped in his head before he knew it, taking him by surprise. It was even in Harry's voice, for some reason. Ron's behavior had always been ugly. Now he was the one on the outside. Ron realized that if Hermione and Harry went back to the Muggle world again, he wouldn't have the first idea what to do - or even where to look for them. And they knew it.

Neville and Luna were both purebloods, but...what was the word he was looking for? Ron just had a feeling that if they went with Harry and Hermione to the Muggle world, they'd be just fine. Luna was calm and took things in and Neville might have been pants at Potions, but no one could say anymore that he wasn't a fast learner. If they all went where Ron couldn't find them, he never would. It was simple as that.

Harry had said _goodbye_ to Ginny, not 'see you later'. He wasn't coming back and she'd known it. Even if Hermione, Luna, and Neville did, Harry never would.

And they hadn't said goodbye to Ron because Harry hadn't wanted to speak to him - none of them had, truly. Harry'd compared Ron to Draco Malfoy, of all people. Did that mean that Harry had felt Ron just as bad as Malfoy, who'd called Hermione a...a Mudblood? Hermione had said she was proud to be one, proud to be _from a Muggle family, from the Muggle world._

And Harry was, too, in a way - from the Muggle world. Harry was raised as a Muggle, his mum was a Muggleborn. He could manage anything he wanted to do. Neville was a genius at Herbology and if he wanted to get food, he knew just what to do. Luna...Ron knew next to nothing about Luna despite knowing her for going on three years.

Ron would be completely lost without magic to help him and the idea of losing it - or being a Squib like Filch and his mum's cousin whose name he didn't even know - made him almost sick up.

It hit him like a Bludger. They were going where they _knew_ he couldn't find them because he couldn't follow and, if he did try, he'd give up in a moment.

They were just gone. Ron blinked and tried to force the worms in his belly to go away. He had to think of something to tell his mum.

With a crack, then, he went back to the castle.

...TBC...


	5. Missed  C

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own all, though at the moment Rowling gets all the credit. Snow Patrol. "Eyes Open.". Polydor; Interscope, 2006.

**Summary:** "Hello, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, finally, the words themselves his long-held sigh.

"You said...you said you weren't - "

**Notes:** I...may be a little sadistic. I may not. Your own opinion, as well as mine.

**Notes, cont'd.** This chapter was a fun little adventure in sacrifice and chosen forgiveness. At least I like to think Harry forgave them...

Part III: Missed - C

_...I can't be as sorry as you think I should, but I still love you more than anyone else could..._

The next time wizards and witches arrived in Privet Drive, they did so quietly, but with purpose.

Harry led the way, knowing the village inside and out from his haunt of it during the summer before his fifth year, not to mention living there every year before that.

They had stopped specifically to buy both Luna and Neville Muggle clothing, as Harry hadn't wanted their trip to be distracted by anything so petty as appearances, and now all four of them strode down the street toward Number Four Privet Drive, Harry suppressing a deep sigh and wondering if his uncle, or even his aunt, would start yelling or screaming the second they saw him.

Harry shortly got his answer when, upon knocking on the door and Uncle Vernon yanking it open, the older man immediately went to yell and grab at Harry, only to be stopped by the sudden influx of wands pointed at his throat. Harry silently wondered if sending Betelguese onward to Ireland by Portkey had been such a smart idea after all. He knew his snake would be safely hidden, but hoped that finding him wouldn't be a chore - besides, having him here would have been useful.

Then again, his even being here was enough of a distraction, Harry knew.

Instead of making threats, Harry merely stated his business. "I'm not here to fight with you, Uncle Vernon, and I don't want to hurt you. I want to speak to Aunt Petunia and Dudley and then I'll leave you in peace. It's more than you deserve, but considering you're on the underhanded side here, it's a mercy I think I can afford."

Without asking, Harry strode into the house, stopping only to force Hermione to move past his cupboard - for it would always be his, he knew - before she could become obsessed with it and called his aunt's name, as well as Dudley's, as he moved into the parlor, seating himself without asking and nodding to his friends to do the same.

His aunt creeped, blinking confusedly, into the hall beyond the parlor, glancing at her husband, who was frozen at the doorway, Neville's cold glare having caused him to back up unconsciously toward the wall and stay there.

Harry silently asked everyone to sheave their wands, having noticed his aunt beginning to quake when she saw them all there. This didn't calm her, but Harry wasn't interested in that.

"Hello, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, finally, the words themselves his long-held sigh.

"You said...you said you weren't - "

"Yeah, I hadn't intended to - actually, I assumed I'd be dead. I wasn't far off, but things changed. No, I'm not going to explain that to you. What I'm here to ask about is the larger part of why I came back. I'm not going to ask you do you know Severus Snape, because I know the answer - and that _very familiar_ look on your face lets me know perfectly well that you haven't forgotten him. Good. Don't ever.

"At any rate, I've been staying in his parents house over in Spinner's End near where you and Mum grew up and I found that he'd done some research into the Evans line - at the time he was very curious how my mum was the only witch - oh, stop flinching, will you? I've had enough of that nonsense with Voldemort's name, I don't need it from the simple word, 'witch'. Bully."

Harry took a deep breath and forced his face back into a neutral expression. "Unfortunately, _Professor Snape_, yes, _professor_ - he taught all four of us Potions and many more students for fifteen years at Professor Dumbledore's _'behest'_ - but didn't get very far in his research before he and Mum fell out over him being an idiot when they were fifteen.

"But what he did have was very interesting. A wee bit disturbing, since generally when someone fancies someone else, they just buy them Valentine's Day cards or some such, they don't research their lineage...but, then, Mum _was_ his first and only friend. Anyway. Professor Snape found that your - our family originally hails from western Ireland, in one of the few remaining places where Irish is still spoken as an everyday language, though there were laws against it throughout the entirety of Ireland at the time I'm about to mention.

"The king of England and Ireland was kind of like the Dark _Berk_ in that he wanted the Irish stamped out like _Thomas Riddle_ - you know him as Voldemort - did Muggles - yes, did. He's dead, I killed him. Or, rather, he and I cast simultaneous spells and his happened to be instant death. Our wands are brothers and repel one another so he essentially committed suicide out of sheer egocentricity. My spell wouldn't have killed him, normally, just disarmed him, but since he was a homicidal sociopath, he just _had_ to try and kill me again. Pity for him."

Harry - well aware of how lackadaisical he sounded about the topic of attempted murder and other atrocious crimes, but unable to alter his tone at this point - chanced a concentrated look at his aunt, to find her staring at him, wide-eyed, her face paling sharply even in the bright sunlight of the afternoon around them.

"Moving on now, since you're staring at me like I'm a bomb about to explode, yes, the war is over. Why d'you think you were allowed to return home? I want to make sure any renegade Death Eaters don't do anything to you, but other than that, I owe you nothing. _You_, on the other hand, owe me quite a lot. I'm willing to forget all of it, I'd like to anyway, but I'm going to get things out of you first since that's the least you should do. What you should have, you didn't, but that's old news.

"Back to our original story. What the King of England didn't know at the time, likely, was that there were whole sections of Ireland completely unknown to him. They don't show up anywhere but on Wizarding maps because they're wizarding villages, as well as magical sections of otherwise Muggle villages. Your - _our_ family traces backward to a village and county called Galway, near County Ulster. Specifically a section of village that was completely wiped out near the mid-eighteenth century.

"This county was one mainly of magical folk, but many had married non-magical people like yourself. Their children tended to be a mix of magical and non-magical and no one particularly cared which a lot of the time except for making sure the children adhered to the doctrines of the Catholic Church and didn't practice the ways of the Old, which the English - er, we, them...I'm not sure anymore, but I'll just continue - had been stamping out viciously since the time of William the Orange and before. I'm rambling and Hermione, if you don't stop giggling, when we get out of here I'll hex your tongue to the roof of your mouth.

"The _point_, Aunt Petunia, before my mind gets away from me again, is that you _are_ of wizarding descent whether you like to think about the possibility or not. If my mum had anything to do with the project, she probably talked to Snape about it while he was at your house and you overheard since you listened in on everything else they said like you do your neighbors now. Whatever. Dudley's not magical, I am. And it was completely random. From the look on your face, you've known this perfectly well and I've said enough to make you want to toss me out on my ear, so I'll just remind you I have a wand and you don't."

"I could have been one of - magical?" a surprising voice cut into Harry's unintentional monologue and he found himself starting and then staring open-mouthed at the doorway, where Dudley leaned against the entrance and watched him back, surprisingly comfortable.

Harry, himself, was thrown by just how much weight Dudley seemed to have lost during the previous year (and possibly before that, Harry hadn't been paying attention, after all), making him seem almost to have shrunk in their time apart.

"Dudley, you..." Harry petered off, running his hand through his hair, completely at a loss for what to say.

"Nice, cousin. You saw Dad wouldn't let me bring my weights after they fell on his foot. Not to mention, we couldn't just run out to somewhere for food when we felt like it. Had to plan it all."

Harry snorted, "Your year sounds like mine. Well, congrats. Want to hear the rest of the story?"

Dudley then blinked and, for the first time, showed ill-ease as he glanced at his mother, who was pointedly not looking back at him. Dudley breathed deeply, looking around at Hermione, Luna, and Neville, and then saying quietly, "Yeah, I do. Don't get to do much talking anymore. Something about tolerating you. High crime and all..."

And here he shot Aunt Petunia a dirty look, which she again pointedly ignored, and Harry just managed to keep his mouth from falling open. The Dursleys wanted nothing to do with Dudley anymore since he'd acknowledged Harry's existence. Harry's heart sank as he realized how isolated Dudley had probably been the whole time they'd been in hiding.

"Get that look off your face, Harry, I had Dedalus and Hestia to talk to - quit worrying about me and get back to how I could have been a wizard, but you lucked out instead."

Aunt Petunia actually tried to get up and leave, but four wands instantly pointed at her kept her to her seat. Uncle Vernon, however, seemed to have recovered from his earlier stupefaction and now advanced on Dudley who, instead of backing down, glared at his father and balled his fists.

"Let Harry finish, Dad. This could be just what you're looking for. A reason to ditch me like you and Mum did him - but, then, hey - isn't Harry saying Mum's whole family is descended from wizards? That'd include her, too. Going to file for divorce now? What will _the neighbors_ think?"

Uncle Vernon looked terribly like he wanted to hit Dudley, but refrained - likely at least partially because Dudley was still bigger than he was, especially in height, and still knew how to box even if he wasn't a human freight train anymore - and finally backed down, glaring at the lot of them before stomping off into the kitchen, muttering about freaks.

Harry swallowed and forced himself to concentrate on Aunt Petunia again, "We're going to Galway - my mates and I. We figure we'll try to figure out what happened there and see what else we can find. After that, I'll come back one more time and then get out of your hair for the rest of both our natural-born lives."

"I don't want - "

"I'm not giving you a choice, Aunt Petunia. You didn't particularly care if I lived or died, but I'm not much for vengeance. Destroying the madman who killed my parents and thousands of other people rather drove that out of me, I find."

Harry sighed once more and continued, "I need to make sure that none of his followers decide to pay this place a visit, especially not thinking it'll give them a shot at me. I plan to erase any and all doubt about my leaving this place for good when I do. You two get to wallow in your excruciatingly boring lifestyle for as long as God sees fit. We go our separate ways."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Petunia asked desperately, finally deigning to look back at the other people in the room instead of clenching her eyes shut and attempting to pretend they weren't there. "Why couldn't you just leave me alone?"

Here Harry smiled bitterly, "A question I've been asking you and Uncle Vernon since I was old enough to do so. Pity you get your answer and I don't. Simple: I refuse to let you enjoy your ignorance. One could call it spite, but I like to call it paying back an old debt. You left me ignorant and smote me for ten years. Now I'm letting you know it was all for naught. You can't hide from what you really are and I can't let you. Your husband, there, has a decision to make. His answer will be my repayment for the sixteen years I spent in this house, however it goes."

"I - "

"Had no right to do what you did and no amount of brainwashing's ever going to put that idea back into my head. If you'd sat and thought for five seconds, you'd've realized, if I enjoyed living here, if I had any reason to want to be here, then the protection on this house would have been stronger than the world's best safe. Instead, you made it my prison - one I tried desperately to escape from time and time again. Dumbledore always said as long as I called this place 'home', the wards wouldn't fail, but that couldn't have been it because they'd've fallen the second I left when I was thirteen and blew up Uncle Vernon's sister. I had _no intention_ of coming back."

Harry actually stood then, speaking more loudly so that his voice carried clearly to the kitchen, where he knew his uncle was eavesdropping on this entire conversation. "The wards depended on magic. Usually, wards fail when the caster dies, but some are set a certain way as to feed on the living magic of the family or occupants, themselves.

"I would know, I've spent the last month reading as many of the books in Professor Snape's house as I could. Muggles are without magic, ergo they don't have a magical core to feed off of. This is inherent in their makeup, just as magic is inherent in wizards and witches...so, one wonders, why didn't the wards on this house fall the second I left when I was thirteen? Why didn't they fall when Dumbledore died last year since he was the caster of the original spells?"

And here Harry leaned over Aunt Petunia, ignoring the tiny thrill he got from her inching backward into the couch and trying desperately to ignore his words.

"Whose magic were they feeding on, because it wasn't mine. Mine goes with me wherever I am. It's within me, I have complete control over it, especially now - magic that's ambient, though, that suffuses the person, but they have no way to channel it...they're without a wand, like you are, like Dudley...magic in recessive genes, like with what the magical world calls 'Squibs', where their magic isn't a dominant gene like someone who can control their power and channel it...magic like that, magic tied to emotions and actions instead of conscious thought...that can likely keep a ward going forever if there's always someone of related blood in the _place that they call 'home'_- "

"GET OUT!" Petunia shrieked, bursting to her feet and carelessly shoving Harry away from her. "Get out and take all your horrible magic with you! It killed my family, again and again - you don't even care - "

"If he didn't - " Hermione started, but Harry held up his hand, letting Aunt Petunia vent her spleen. He was so curious as to what would happen...

"She was my sister! And until she met that thrice-damned boy and got her head full of all that rubbish, we were _fine_! We didn't need to know about any of it, we didn't need to be anything else! But then she _made herself a witch_, like he said she was! She left me! I didn't care about any of your stupid spells or _charms_ or - or any of it! I wanted Lily!"

"If you wanted her, you shouldn't have thrown her away at Kings Cross. You broke her heart that day. Severus Snape tried, but he never could pick up all the pieces, it just wasn't in his power. It was yours. You threw your sister away and then, to this day, remain surprised at the results."

"I - "

"I know you wrote to Dumbledore, but you just didn't have enough magic. It wasn't your fault, but - more importantly - it wasn't Lily Evans' fault, either. It wasn't even Severus Snape's. And my mother still loved you. She kept a vase you gave her even though she didn't like it, and when Snape's accidental magic hurt you when you were little, my mum was angry for _you_. But then you called her a freak and made her rubbish and rubbish was what she - and I, and now Dudley, I guess - became. You kept me in that cupboard...was that more rubbish awaiting the bin?"

Petunia slowly sank back down onto the couch, slowly starting to shudder as she began to cry.

Harry finally took a deep breath. "It's odd. If you'd just accepted her the way she was, who knows how things might have turned out. But you let jealousy and rage corrupt whatever magic you _did_ have and who knows what you look like on your insides - your soul. For all I know, intent-wise, you've made a Horcrux. Because I could have died and you readily allowed it to happen but I'll never eqivocate that for you. If you want to be miserable, I'm just going to sit back and let you."

Petunia watched her nephew through her clutched fingers, her eyes wide as he simply gazed down upon her, his face the epitome of sadness.

They stayed like that for a moment until Harry finally turned on his heel, facing Dudley and forcing himself to calm down. "Dudley, I'm giving you a half-hour to pack. Whatever you're taking, you'd better make it quick. If you want one of us to help you shrink it all down, now's the time to ask. If not, we'll be out in the front garden."

"I thought you couldn't do magic here - something about some law you broke...that night..." Dudley bit his lip, paling slightly, and Harry sighed.

"That ridiculous, hackneyed, biased statute against underage wizardry in muggleborns ends when we turn seventeen - Dumbledore told you we come of age then. I'll be eighteen in four months. Either way, as far as the wizarding world is concerned, I could probably start a fireworks show on Downing Street and they'd let me do it. I'm so special and all that."

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes and, instead, shooed his cousin toward the stairs. "Half an hour, Diddikins."

"I can still pound you," Dudley's retreating voice taunted jokingly and Harry grinned widely.

"And I can turn you into a slug. Whatcha got next?"

The only answer was Dudley's door slamming and Harry smirked and turned to purposely stroll slowly outside, pausing, however, just before he reached the door to open it. "Bye, Uncle Vernon! I'll send you post from Galway!"

Silence met Harry and his closest friends as they walked wordlessly back out into the sunshine to await his cousin's arrival.

...TBC...


	6. Landings

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own nearly all. Snow Patrol. "Eyes Open.". Polydor; Interscope, 2006. The Decemberists. "Castaways and Cutouts., Picaresque.". Hush, Rough Trade, 2006, 2005. John Mayer. "Inside Wants Out.". Columbia, 2001. Cursive. "The Ugly Organ." Saddle Creek, 2003. Incubus. "A Crow Left of the Murder.". Interscope, 2004. My Chemical Romance. "The Black Parade.". Reprise, Warner Bros., Eyeball, 2006. Taking Back Sunday. "Louder Now.". Hollywood, 2006. Pi. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Artisan., 1998.

Other references from books, movies, music, and both DC and Marvel Comics (if _only_ BB/DK had come out back then..."Why So Serious?"). Yes, I know they're rivals of sorts. I don't care, it's all in good fun and since I don't personally know anyone at DC Comics or Marvel, let's just assume they've never wanted each other dead. The fans, on the other hand...

Slave Labor Graphics, as well, because I could never reference anything in a comic book and not eventually mention _Johnny the Homicidal Maniac_ and its sequels by Jhonen Vasquez. Considering they were largely originally published in 1996 and 1997, I think it's appropriate.

Daria belonged to MTV once upon a time. Actually I think the show still belongs to them. It certainly still belongs to Viacom International, who may or may not be whores, according to the movie, _Fanboys_, which takes place in 1998. In fact, kindly add _Star Wars_ and Star Trek to the list simply because the opportunity's just too good to pass up.

I might be enjoying these citations just a bit too much.

**Summary:** Before Harry knew it, a Bubble-Head Charm had gone up around his head, as well as those of everyone else. Breathing fresh, bloodless air now, Harry glanced over at everyone else. Maybe this really was a mistake.

**Notes:** And finally we get to the Joss Whedon portion of events, ladies and gentlemen! *sighs deeply in relief* Also, something I'd like to change from canon: since Harry decided to master Death and keep the Deathly Hallows out of harm's reach if possible, he didn't put the Elder wand back into Dumbledore's tomb, but kept them united with the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility. He is exactly as Snape described, the Master of Death. Which actually might come in handy on a Hellmouth, now that I think about it...*snort*

As you may have noticed, I've started mixing the book universe with things from the movies that I happened to enjoy a great deal. Just thought you all should know.

**Notes, cont'd.** I still have AtS, episode 1.15, 'The Prodigal' memorized. I'd be bashful if it didn't amuse me so much. A little nod to anyone else who watched Old School Nickelodeon, or even the movie that inspired the cartoon, though there are large differences between the two...

Part IV: Landings

_There's a low moon caught in your tangle..._

Dudley was almost sick when what Harry had called a Portkey had taken them directly from Kings Cross Station - Harry had had Dudley hold firmly to his and Luna Lovegood's hands to capitalize on what ambient magic he did have control of in order for him to cross the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 that led to Platform 9 3/4 - to said magical platformm, where Dudley was forced to ignore the stationary form of the gigantic scarlet steam engine Harry had apparently taken to school every year until the summer previous.

He'd tried not to stare openly as a woman he was introduced to named Professor Minerva McGonagall, apparently now Headmistress of Harry and the rest's former school, had removed her wand, pointing it an old torn trainer very clearly and an old trainer of his, later Harry's and saying _"Portus_", whereupon it subsequently gave off a faint blue glow before going back to what it had been before.

"You're certain about this, the lot of you?" she asked in a slightly choked up voice that Harry, Neville Longbottom, and Hermione Granger all looked surprised to hear.

Harry nodded resolutely, as did Hermione. Luna and Neville each smiled at Professor McGonagall before Luna simply walked up and hugged her.

"Don't worry, Professor," Luna's downright tiny, lilting voice said and Professor McGonagall had stared down her, seemingly at a loss for what to do. "You already trust Harry, Hermione, and Neville to do Gryffindor proud. Besides, I'll be with them, should they choose to do anything foolish."

To Dudley's surprise, Professor McGonagall actually began to cry and then gathered Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Luna all in a huge hug.

"You were all some of my best students - certainly several of my bravest and most intelligent, cunning...purest of heart and loyal to a fault. All of you have done Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry so very proud, say nothing of Professor Dumbledore and myself."

Hermione Granger was smiling in a very watery fashion now as they slowly backed away from their former teacher and Professor McGonagall finally got a look at Dudley, himself, who found himself trying to slide back through the barrier for fear of angering the Professor of what she probably knew had been his treatment of Harry for so long.

"Mr. Dursley, the mere fact that - that you're here shows you've certainly changed from the swotty brat I first laid eyes on in your infancy. Your parents did yourself and Mr. Potter a terrible disservice, but each of you has overcome it admirably. I daresay, had I taught you, you would have made a good addition to my House, given your actions over the last two years if Mr. Potter is correct about your change for the better. It took a lot of courage to throw off the binds your parents had you in."

Dudley felt his breath hitch, but managed to pause before slowly walking back toward the main group. "Erm, well - Headmistress...to be honest, I was a right berk to Harry forever, I - "

"Have changed," Professor McGonagall said firmly, her voice tinged with both sadness and kindness. "And that takes a great deal of courage, especially in light of constant reminders of one's past sins. And that's bravery not ordinarily seen. Mr. Potter wants to allow you to join him in exploring your mothers' line and their impact on the wizarding world, to see if there are any other Evanses surviving at all with any magical ability or at least familial ties. I daresay you should let him. You both need each other. You're the closest family either has at the moment."

Dudley froze, glancing at Harry for a bit. "Harry, er - remember, that...well, right before, when you told me about...about Mark Evans? Is he...a...what'd you call Mu - my mother and I?"

"You're Squibs, I'm betting heavily, according to the magical world. Personally, I think all those labels are rather pointless in the end. Pureblood, Muggleborn, Squib, Muggle - it's all rubbish, really. We're all just people. Anyway, I dunno about Mark Evans, but - "

Harry turned to Professor McGonagall, who was listening intently to the conversation going on in front of her and said, "Professor - was a Mark Evans on the Hogwarts First Year list as a Muggleborn before the Death Eaters took over and barred all those from Muggle families entry to Hogwarts?"

"I will have to check the enrollment book, Mr. Potter, but if he was, or anyone with the Evans surname, I'll be certain to owl you with the results, though I will remind you that it is actually a fairly common name in the Muggle world."

"That's kind of the point, Professor," Harry explained. "If my mum came from a long line of Squibs that branched off from the same wizarding origin, then it would be a rather common name for Muggles by now. The history Professor Snape gave us goes back at least two hundred years and I counted a ton of other surnames in use _before_ 'Evans' was, so it's not really a stretch."

McGonagall nodded, "That's true. Well, certainly, he was barred entry this past year, but as the incident you're referring to happened before your fifth year, he would have at least received a first year's education, as well as a House affiliation. I believe you were actually allowed to see the Sorting that year, though I suppose it's too much to hope you'd've paid too much attention. Yourself, Miss Granger, and Mr. Weasley were all busy congratulating yourselves on having surpassed the Weasley twins in entering the Forbidden Forest several times, thoroughly against school rules - "

"Tell that to Hagrid, Professor!" Harry objected jokingly, managing to ignore the mention of Ron. "He's the one who dragged us in there half the time. That detention with Filch - Neville was there for that one since he was with the rest of us after Filch caught us out of bed and bounds and all that, Umbridge threatening me with the Cruciatus Curse until Hermione had Hagrid's brother Grawp and the centaurs ran her off - "

Harry held back a snicker at the distinctly sour expression that flitted across McGonagall's face at the mention of Umbridge. "Then there's the battle against Voldemort and the Death Eaters - you know, that sounds like a band name now that I think about it - but, anyway, that was just a month ago...having to meet Aragog and the rest of the acromantulas back in second year to clear Hagrid's name - we had due reason for being there, Professor!"

Professor McGonagall stared at Harry for a moment. "Mister Potter, where have you...never mind." She sighed heavily, conceding the point, and shook her head slightly. "Yes, well, at any rate, this Portkey will take you all to the Wizarding customs office in _Dún Laoghaire–Ráth an Dúin_, Dublin Region, and from there you can all Apparate and Side-Along to Galway City in the province of Connacht. From there, I expect you'll do what you've set out to do, whatever that truly is."

With those words, Professor McGonagall pointedly lay her hands on Harry's shoulders, "I waited a decade to see you again, Mr. Potter, and now you're setting off on your own path. I suppose it's too much to hope you'll return to our...or is it just my world now?...Any time soon, but on the off chance you ever change your mind, I assure you that the Defense post is yours the moment you might want it."

Harry flushed dully in embarrassment and dutifully looked away as Professor McGonagall took out a tartan handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes with it. "But I suppose that's too much to hope for after all you've been through. Will you do me the small favor of sending me post at some point, just to let me know you're alright? If it's addressed to Hogwarts, Muggle mail will get it there in the end."

Harry bit his lip, exhaling before hugging Professor McGonagall again and then backing away, nodding, "Of course, Professor. Wouldn't miss writing you for the world."

Dudley watched as everyone else hugged Professor McGonagall one last time before Harry glanced back at him, "You'd better get over here, Dudley. This Portkey's about to go off."

Dudley took a deep breath and walked over to where everyone else was simply standing there, holding a tattered old trainer, obviously expecting something...magical to happen. He got his answer when barely after he'd touched it, Dudley felt some kind of hook tug sharply behind his navel and then he was pulled forward into seeming nothingness.

Harry watched with sympathy as Dudley immediately faceplanted the second all their feet hit the ground, remembering his previous experiences with Portkeys, himself.

After enlisting Neville's help in lugging Dudley's nearly dead weight back to his feet and keeping him there once he was, Harry sighed at the almost overwhelming smell of fresh grass and dew wafting at them from every direction. They stood in front of the Wizarding customs office for Dublin, IRE, which stood in a rather isolated fashion in the middle of a huge swath of green pasture.

"Come on," Hermione said decisively once they'd all gotten their bearings back, but Harry stopped and turned to Dudley.

"Wait, Hermione. You can see the office, can't you, Dudley?" he asked, his tone slightly urgent and Dudley looked back in trepidation, nodding slowly.

Harry relaxed. "Sorry. Er, Mrs. Figg - our neighbor we thought was batty, she's a Squib, too, and she swore she could see the Dementors that attacked us."

"I - "

Harry cut Dudley off with a sigh, "I know you saw them, though I didn't at the time. I only figured it out at Snape's house. Your problem wasn't only that you didn't have a wand, but that you didn't know the Patronus spell like I do. It's the only thing that drives them off."

"Oh," Dudley said then in a very small voice and Harry did something he'd never done before and gripped Dudley around the shoulders. "As soon as we're able to get some, I'll get you some chocolate, Dudley. It helps throw off the Dementors' effects and generally helps magic cheer up anyone's awful mood. I forgot that that year, too, otherwise I'd've eaten my birthday presents. I was being an idiot, though."

"You were not," Hermione objected turning to Harry, understanding exactly what he was getting at. "Dumbledore was keeping you - and Sirius, for that matter - completely isolated and forcing the rest of us to help him do it. I told you, I'd've been furious if it was me. As long as I'm being honest, I thought you were rather restrained in just yelling. I thought for sure you'd at least set off some accidental magic or hex us all or something."

Harry stared at Hermione now, downright surprised, "I did, actually - sparks in the Dursleys' kitchen - but...why would I have hexed you? It wasn't - you didn't ask - "

"Neither did you, Harry," Hermione said in a sad voice, reaching over and hugging him tightly, which he returned before stepping back and sighing. "I thought it was despicable that Dumbledore had all those Order members following you around, never letting you have any decent letters to cheer you up, or at least giving you a clue as to when you would be allowed to see any of us. It was just awful and he shouldn't have done that to you, shadows of Voldemort or not. Voldemort's obsessions were Voldemort's problems and, oddly, if Dumbledore had just left you alone or _actively helped you_ instead of treating you like a curio for six years, then maybe Voldemort would have had a few less cracks at you."

Harry was staring at Hermione harder than ever now. He leaned back slightly and whistled. "If Hermione Granger, First Year, could see you now..."

Hermione smiled, blushing madly, and swatted Harry on the shoulder. "Shut up, Harry."

Beside her, Neville was grinning wickedly at the memory.

"'We could have been killed or - '"

"'Or worse, _expelled_!'" Harry finished, both of them collapsing into laughter then, as Hermione folded her arms and turned resolutely away from them, a 'harumph' being distinctly heard even as they laughed uproariously.

"Shut. Up," Hermione screamed quietly in frustration, sorely tempted to hex the hell out of both of them.

Slowly, Harry and Neville each got themselves under control, leaning against one another to catch their breath.

"Finished?" Hermione asked irritably and they both nodded, now carefully avoiding one another's gaze. "Well, then, _Harry_, I believe you have business in that building?"

Harry sighed and swallowed, "Er, yeah. Shall we?"

The others, save Dudley, who was still staring at the wizarding customs building in awe, nodded their consent and Harry turned to look at his cousin again. "Dudley, there are hidden buildings and towns all over the world. Assuming you could have seen the Leaky Cauldron when Hagrid took me shopping for my school supplies that first time, perhaps London would have been a good place to stop first. I'll tell you now, however, that I have no intention of ever returning to England, though - of course - intentions or not, I may one day. As it is, where we're going isn't visible to nonmagical eyes, either, so - really - it's almost better than the Leaky Cauldron, because it's a whole village we're looking for."

Harry took a deep breath at the trepidation in Dudley's eyes, but frowned resolutely. "You don't have to go if you don't want - "

"I'm going," Dudley said sharply, snapping out of his misgivings for the time being. "I don't have anyone in Little Whinging anymore, any more than you do. I don't want to be around my parents, who are petty and cruel and brought out the worst in me before I was ever old enough to know the difference. What did they think that would accomplish? That I'd be so comfortable, I'd never have a reason to do any magic if I could? All it did was make your accidental magic - Dedalus explained that in detail - worse, not better. Aunt Marge deserved what she got, talking about - about Aunt Lily and Uncle James the way she did. It's really easy to talk about people who aren't there to defend themselves or contradict you. And the only one getting _drunk_ that night was _her_."

Harry paused, staring at Dudley with...admiration and feelings other than dread or hatred for the first time in his life. He'd called Harry's parents 'Aunt Lily' and 'Uncle James'. Dudley had never even said their names before, what with it being so discouraged in the Dursley household.

Harry took a deep breath, "Thanks, Dudley. T-thanks. I'll be honest with you, my dad and godfather - their _false friend_, Peter Pettigrew...they weren't really good people when they were alive. I don't know if my dad or godfather would have continued to change for the better had they each lived full lives, but the time they did spend in the world wasn't spent treating people the way they deserved to be. The last Marauder, Remus Lupin, was a far sight better than the other three, but since he was always so isolated and cast down for being a werewolf, he was afraid to lose what friendship he _did_ achieve, even if it meant looking the other way when my father and godfather pulled terrible pranks on other students, even when he was a prefect.

"He eventually became the person he should have been all along, unencumbered by social stigma and loved the way he deserved, but he was killed before he could live that happy life for himself. I was named godfather of his and another friend, his wife Nymphadora Tonks - Tonks, mostly, but her dad, whom my godson is named after - Theodore Tonks - called her 'Dora'. Since I don't much fancy calling people I love by their last names, especially in death, I think I'll refer to her by 'Dora' from now on."

"You have a godson?" Dudley goggled and Harry nodded. "But you said you're never coming back to England again. You'll never see him."

But Harry shook his head. "I can always contact Andromeda Tonks - his grandmother - if I want to see Teddy. Besides, he's only a baby and if I get into a dangerous situation, I'd hardly like to drag him into it. Unfortunately, my own godfather had the irresponsible tendency to encourage the same behavior in myself and I don't want to repeat his mistakes. He was human - an Animagus - granted, which meant he could shapeshift into animal form, but imperfect.

"Still, he never learned from his mistakes and leapt before he looked. In trying to protect me that way, he got himself killed. I don't want my extended family, whatever branches of it I have left, to go through that again and again and I've been through it enough for a lifetime. The point of this trip is to see if you and I have any family left and what to make of them if we do. Just know that wherever I end up, you're not obliged to come with me. Being apart doesn't make us stop being family anymore, does it, Big D?"

Dudley winced slightly at the old nickname, but shook his head regardless. "No, it doesn't. I understand, Harry. We should probably go inside now, though, since - do wizards have loitering laws?"

Harry snorted, "Not from what I can tell. You can be wherever you want at whatever time you want, for nearly whatever reason, so long as it isn't related to Dark Magic. But, yeah, it's - is anybody else starting to get damp again?"

"It's very misty, here," Neville agreed, sweeping his wand over himself as Harry, Hermione, and Luna all did the same and Harry did so for Dudley, to waterproof themselves.

Dudley gaped down at himself, noticing that his clothes were now dry again and that the water in the air seemed to just _miss_ him, somehow. He looked back up at Harry, who simply grinned and gestured toward the customs office.

"Again, so we shall." And they entered.

_...This party is old and univiting..._

Ron sat miserably in the middle of the Great Hall, having taken another break from fixing the castle, and watched angrily as Malfoy and his stupid, evil, Dark family sat watching everyone else, occasionally whispering to one another. No one was even taking time to bother them or call them out on the fact that they'd helped destroy the school in the first place.

But, worst of all, Harry and Hermione still weren't beside him and never would be again. It still hadn't sunken in. He hadn't seen them in the past month, nor received any post from them, and the ache in his stomach was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Ron startled slightly as his father gently sat down beside him and ran a hand over his hair.

"You understand," Arthur Weasley said slowly, quietly, causing Ron to flinch. "That you really had nothing to expect from either of them, Ron. They're of age, just as you are, and perfectly entitled to make their own decisions. Say nothing of the fact that Harry's properties are his and just because we don't currently have a permanent home doesn't make us entitled to ask him for one of his. Generosity is one thing, a handout is another. Asking Harry for one of his homes, no matter how he may have felt or feels about them, wouldn't have been your place."

"But they were - we were best friends!" Ron said for what had to have been the hundredth time that month.

Arthur sighed, "Yes, and you abused their friendship. You've admitted as much. Ginny may have forced you to actually say it the first time, but you know your behavior wasn't that of a friend. You've walked out on them more times than should ever be allowed. By all rights, they didn't have to accept you back after the first time. You were wrong and took them for granted. I won't lie to you, son, this is what happens when you take people for granted."

Ron buried his face in his arms and moaned. "But Hermione...I..."

"Treated her like rubbish a lot of the time, even after you realized she fancied you. A man who loves a woman doesn't do that. Your mother and I taught you better than that. At least we thought we had."

Ron's head snapped up at the quiet condemnation he heard in his father's voice and, for the first time since that day in Godric's Hollow, Ron felt like crying again. "I didn't..." Ron petered out. He had no idea what he wanted to say.

"You felt entitled to their friendship even though you weren't. Harry and Hermione are human beings, not objects. You treated them like you could just toss them in a corner when you didn't feel like dealing with them. You humiliated and insulted Hermione, you ignored Harry and treated him like two different people. You never realized he wasn't just the Boy Who Lived and when he didn't live up to your ridiculous standards, you went along with everyone else in treating him like he should have known or done better, even though he was even younger than you, even if only by about five months. Again, you took them completely for granted and now you're paying for it."

Ron swiped at the tears trailing down his face now and gripped the edge of Gryffindor table, trying to breathe around the sob that was struggling to get out.

"You're...you're saying I have...no - no right to ask any-anything of them at all." Ron sniffled heavily.

"That's what I'm saying, Ron, as much as I know it hurts you to hear it. You didn't stick by them and they finally got fed up. What Ginny told you is entirely true. If Hermione had been bonded to you, she would have been in for a life of misery and regret. You're not the person for her, Ron, and it's time you faced up to that."

"But she's the person for me!" Ron nearly burst out and Arthur sighed and ran his hand over Ron's hair again.

"Well, if that's the way you feel, then you should have acted like it. But you didn't, so now you're in this fix. And there's nothing, which you know perfectly well, that Hermione has to do about it. If you can't forget her and move on, then that's up to you, as well. No one put you in this situation, Ron, you brought it on yourself. It's time to get up and deal with it or lie down and die. Your choice."

Ron stared at his father with wide eyes, horror suffusing him. He had no way of knowing Severus Snape had been forced to reckon with his own mistakes the same way nearly twenty years before. Lessons unlearned causes history to repeat itself...

"Anywhere'tall, Mr. Potter, ye want ter go'n a Portkey will be ready within but moments!" the ecstatic Dubliner Wizarding customs officer had told him, practically punting himself, Dudley, and his friends through any secrecy scans and paperwork, at one point tossing out his regular quill and using a Quick-Quotes quill to record everything instead.

"Sir, really, none of this is necessary," Harry finally managed to burst out. "I'll gladly go through all the regular checks and whatnot - "

"Nonsense! What could The Man Who Destroyed the Dark Lord be hidin', then, eh?"

"Letter bombs, for one," Dudley had muttered in Harry's ear and Harry had been forced to turn his laughter into a quick coughing fit, which the customs wizard had promptly offered him a potion for.

"No, thanks, I'm fine, honest!" Harry refused, gently shoving the proffered potion away while Dudley, Hermione, Neville, and Luna all tittered madly in the background. "Just a little...dust or something..."

A flat-out lie, since they were surrounded by grass, but the customs wizard paid him no mind. Another ten minutes and the five of them had been given another, this time sanctioned, Portkey to County Galway, though the wizard had actually managed to pause, his exhuberance dampened when he realized where they wanted to go.

"I..." he started to say, but forced himself to stop and simply process their Portkey order, though he gave them an ominous, cautiously longing sort of glance as they stood waiting for it to go off.

"'Tid be but a shame if'n the Man Who Destroyed the Dark Lord died but a day after riddin' our world of such a terrible menace as He Who Must Not Be Named. One ter chase after evil, I suppose. Be well, Mr. Potter - yer mates, as well..."

Harry could only stare silently at him until finally, a tugging sensation behind his navel whipped himself and his _family_ out of sight.

Landing heavily, Harry fell to his knees in a vastly overgrown, completely deserted section of what had, centuries ago, been a living, breathing village. Right away, he could feel darkness pressing in on him from all sides and he shivered.

"Blimey," he heard Dudley mutter next to him, feeling his cousin rise slowly to his feet and pulling Harry with him. Following Dudley shakily, Harry stood and looked around. Everything was heavily covered with many species of magical plants he immediately recognized from Herbology, as well as some Muggle plants, as well. What wasn't massively plant-ridden was laden with dust and, strangely, the thick metallic scent of freshly spilled blood.

"How can that smell be fresh," Hermione asked in quiet disbelief, covering her nose. "No one's even set foot here in the last two hundred and fifty years!"

Before Harry knew it, a Bubble-Head Charm had gone up around his head, as well as those of everyone else. Breathing fresh, bloodless air now, Harry glanced over at everyone else. Maybe this really was a mistake.

But then, as suddenly as it had come, Harry's doubt was gone and he began inching forward toward the closest remnant of a house, surprised it was still standing after all this time. Peering inside, he found nothing but dusty walls smeared with swatches of a thick black substance that, when he leaned over to examine it, was hard to the touch, calcified. Looking down at the floor, the swath slid all the way down it, leading to what looked like a circular, thin plate of calcium covering a large, thick black stain on the floor.

_Blood._ Harry suddenly realized, his eyes widening, and he backed away slowly, glancing around at everything and seeing blood spatters and stains everywhere.

He left the house quickly, stumbling out into the cobbled street, and struggled to catch his breath even in the purified environment of the charm. Everyone else had stayed outside and was now staring at him, their distorted faces showing fear and dismay.

Harry cancelled the Bubble-Head Charm, though he immediately retched when he did, before Vanishing it and gasping, "Blood - blood everywhere. Everyone didn't disappear, they - were massacred!" he gasped, falling to his knees on the dusty cobble and vomiting once more.

It was Neville who pulled him to his feet this time, Vanishing his refuse while helping steady him. Neville thrust a hastily written parchment note at him. **DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE MATE?**

But Harry shook his head no, re-applying the Bubble-Head Charm and steadying himself until his legs stopped shaking. He took the note and self-inking quill Neville handed him and wrote, **I NEED TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED.**

Neville seemed to nod and Harry slowly inched away from him, though he swayed heavily when he did. Dudley marched up and took hold of Harry by the shoulders, slowly placing Harry in front of him and indicating to the left or the right. _Which way do we go?_

Harry felt gratitude overcome his nausea for the time being, glad that Dudley was as committed as he was to seeing what happened to their ancestors.

Thinking suddenly, Harry realized he needed to find Betelguese. Either he needed to become accustomed to the currently overpowering smell permeating this place and speak Parseltongue, or Harry would be forced to look for his snake by sight alone. Knowing Parseltongue was a far more powerful tool in his arsenal than simply his eyes, Harry opted to take a deep breath to steady himself and remove the charm permanently.

Immediately, his nausea returned full-force, but Harry found Hermione thrusting something into his hand. Glancing down at his hand, he saw one of the potions Madam Pomfrey had given them. Harry downed it with only a guess that it was an antiemetic and was rewarded with his trust by his nausea immediately fading into nothing.

"Thanks, Hermione," he gasped, able to breathe fully for the first time since realizing what he was surrounded by.

Harry breathed slowly, trying to calm his racing heart, and Hermione handed him the last of the potions he'd been required to take since leaving Hogwarts. Harry downed them all one after another and was finally able to stand on his own, no longer shaky and weak.

"What the hell was in there, Harry?" Dudley asked, fear in his voice as he'd seen the way his cousin reacted to whatever he'd seen in the barren room he'd gone into.

"A...murder...murders were committed all over this village. That's - that's why the customs official asked if I knew what I was doing."

Harry breathed slowly once more and then tried to concentrate. He imagined Betelguese and opened his mouth to hiss, _Betelguese._

Then, thinking to try and make himself feel better, Harry tried again, _Betelguese, Betelguese, BETELGUESE!_

_There is no need to shout, Harry,_ Betelguese groused as he slithered out of one of the ruins around them and up to Harry, who immediately bent down to let Betelguese slither up the outside of his jacket sleeve.

_Sorry. I was just having a bit of fun. A joke you wouldn't get because you don't know what a television is, but anyway - find anything good to eat?_

This time Betelguese hissed in deep displeasure. _There is nothing to eat, here. All is dead. The smell of food everywhere, but nothing of where it comes from._

Harry winced and then sighed, _I'm sorry about that. If you can hold on, we'll be leaving after we see some things. There ought to be plenty of rats and whatnot in the rest of Galway._

_Galway?_

_That's the name of the county and village we've come to. This was the wizarding section of it, once upon a time._

Inwardly, Harry smiled yet again at another, this time slight, alliteration, but hissed again, _I'm hoping to find out information about mine and my cousin's family background here. Our ancestors - the ones whose hatchlings' hatchlings' hatchlings' eventually led to us. But there's so much blood - I can't make heads or tails of anything. Is there anything you can smell aside from the blood?_

_There is much I can smell aside from the hidden food. It is like a very large lair here, very soft and comfortable, but it makes me hungry._

_You mean the plants? Well, yes, it is very overgrown with them here. I imagine they're soft. Be careful, though. If there's Devil's Snare or Venemous Tentaculas, I don't want you to get killed. Mandrakes, either, though I guess that'd matter more if you had hands to pull things out of the ground. Never mind, just be careful, okay?_

_Yes, Harry, I will be fine. You cannot smell? What are you wanting to smell?_

Harry's breath hitched in his chest now. _Um. Well, I suppose that two hundred years and probably tons of time would mean that no one here would have smelled anything like either me or Dudley...I don't suppose genes have a smell, exactly. But things seem to be well-preserved, considering it's been so long. It's strange. Do you feel any of the darkness in the air that I do? Any magic or smell any people smells?_

_I do, but they are very mixed up. They all smell like one another at some points._

Harry brightened slightly, _Oh, well, at least that's something. Where's the place with the most smells in it?_

Harry bent down and allowed Betelguese to slither back down onto the dusty cobble before Scourgifying the dust off his jacket. He turned to see that everyone was watching him. "Come on, he's going to show me where the largest concentration of human smells is."

"So you...you still can talk to snakes, then?" Dudley asked, affecting nonchalance, but Harry knew he was unsettled at least a little. He didn't particularly blame Dudley, though the circumstances of that particular time had been his own fault.

"Yeah, Dudley, I can. It's a hereditary magical trait in some people. Everyone associates Parseltongue - that's what the language is called - with Voldemort, but there are random Parselmouths throughout history, most of which were never evil. It's ridiculous."

_I am waiting._ Betelguese hissed with some impatience and Harry glanced back down at him. "Okay, guys, come on, he's following the scents he told me about."

Hurrying to catch up with Betelguese, Harry walked slowly, listening to everyone else quicken their pace, as well. Everyone followed the golden snake, wondering what Harry and Betelguese were even doing, when Betelguese stopped at what was obviously another graveyard and looked backward.

Harry looked forward and gasped in horror again. It was obvious that whoever had lived here had eventually simply given up on separate graves and started piling bodies into one large mass grave, one which was never fully filled in, he presumed because whomever's job it had become to bury the bodies was also murdered in the commission of his job. Half buried skeletons and even some mummified corpses lay scattered throughout the large canyon of now-hardened dirt before them. Their faces and bodies, some of which had been terribly mutilated, were frozen in agony.

"Oh, my God," Hermione whispered, clutching at Harry's arm and they all glanced at one another.

"Er...le - I'll go see if I can read anything on any of the remaining stones, there," Harry said, his voice once more shaky, but Hermione didn't let go of him and Luna latched onto his sleeve, as well, this time.

"I don't think you should go in there alone, Harry," Luna said quietly, her protuberant eyes slowly scanning the carnage before them. "There might be curses or hexes on the graveyard, itself, for example."

Harry paused, realizing he'd just almost gotten himself seriously hurt or killed again. "Right. Of course, okay, 'just rush headlong into another trap' was a stupid plan. Um...hey, Luna, do you have a pair of your Spectro-Specs with you?"

He had a glimmer of an plan, but had no idea at all whether it'd work or not. Luna rummaged in her own bag for a bit before removing a pair and unfolding them. Harry put them on over his glasses and looked back at the graveyard, almost jumping out of his skin in surprise.

"Oh, God. The...there's ghosts, here - they've...they must have been keeping themselves hidden all this time. I can see them with the Spectro-Specs, but..."

Harry removed the extra glasses and instantly the ghosts winked out of sight. "Uh, yeah, they're invisible unless you put the Specs on. Um...hm."

Harry reached into his sleeve and pulled the Deathstick out of his inner pocket. "Okay. Hopefully, this works just as well as with my regular wand..._Expecto Patronum_!"

Harry's Patronus burst forth from the Deathstick and he stared at it, noting that it had taken a different form, possibly since his defeat of Voldemort. An enormous thestral pulled its way out of the tip of the wand and strode confidently into the graveyard ahead. Harry immediately put the Spectro-Specs back on and found the ghosts were now paying the Patronus rapturous attention.

The ghosts clustered around the thestral and one in particular, a little girl with long hair in a sort of ponytail down her back, actually turned and looked at Harry, who felt a strange sort of tugging at his heart.

"What the..." Harry glanced down at his chest before putting the Spectro-Specs and looking at Luna, who was now wearing her own pair. She was staring at the little girl, as well, a surprised look on her face. "Luna, do you have any Specs for Dudley to wear?"

Luna reached back into her bag and pulled out another pair, which she handed to Dudley. He put them on uncertainly and Luna took his hand again as Harry took the other one.

The little girl, her neck visibly broken, was watching them, thin pearly lines of tears trailing down her face as she walked away from a man and woman, possibly her parents - her mother's neck broken like her own, but her father's neck perforated with two silvery bloody holes as they now looked at Harry, Dudley, and Luna, themselves, but said nothing.

The little girl walked closer, crossing the open grave seemingly as though walking over an invisible floor.

"Liam," she said, her voice thick with combined joy and overwhelming sadness and Harry's heart clenched again. "Li...are ye an angel?"

She apparently got an answer from someone and then, backed up slightly, a rapturous smile on her face, before reaching out to hug someone who wasn't there, and suddenly her head twisted in an ugly, unnatural fashion and there was an audible crack as ethereal bone gave way and she dropped to the ground, obviously dead.

The scenario repeated itself again before Harry ripped his Specs off to find that Dudley had already done so and Luna continued to wear hers, though now she was crying silently, herself.

Harry turned away from the scene to try and keep himself from throwing up again as his nausea reared up once more, but quickly died down as the antiemetic potion took hold again.

Whomever this was, whoever these people were, they'd been forced to relive their own deaths again and again for the previous two and a half centuries. Harry had never seen anything like it outside of the Time Room and even that had spun out of control during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. This was unbridled horror.

"Harry," Hermione's tentative voice said as she gently touched his shoulder, only to have him flinch violently away from her.

"We have - have to get out of here," Harry ordered roughly, shoving the Specs into his pocket and turning to rip Dudley's back off his face. His cousin had stood there, transfixed, as the little girl died over and over. Once the glasses were removed, Dudley turned and was sick, himself, in the street behind them. Harry frowned and Vanished the mess.

"Harry," Luna's quietly shivering voice called and he almost snapped at her, but forced himself to stop at the last minute. "Your Patronus..."

Harry froze, but then forced himself to get the Specs back out and put them back on, finally turning to watch what he believed would be a horrible scene again.

The three ghosts were crowded around his Patronus, however, the movie reel-like procession of their re-deaths broken for now as they spoke to the Patronus and the little girl even removed what was obviously a wand - a real wand, Harry could see, not just the ghostly apparition of one - and touched her scalp with it. She glanced back at her mother, who seemed to nod, and then began transferring memory strands to the Patronus. Several of the other ghosts simply watched, but at least fifty in all came to Harry's Patronus and began transferring their memories to it, only backing away once they had finished giving it what they had wanted Harry, presumably, to see.

Slowly, quietly, the Patronus backed away from the ghosts and came back to Harry. Harry hesitated for a moment, but then reached out and touched the Thestral Patronus' nose, only to find himself inundated with a tidal wave of memories that crested and fell over him so that he was blinded with them. Flashes of scenes flew through his mind, imprinting themselves on his subconscious before he collapsed to the ground.

With Harry's loss of consciousness, the Thestral Patronus disappeared instantly.

_...'Cause I see you lying next to me with words I thought I'd never speak..._

_Who, that one?_

_He's magnificent!_

_Oh, yes - his lies sound pretty when the stars are out, but he forgets every promise he's made once the sun comes up again!_

_That wouldn't be a problem for me, actually..._

_Master Liam, yer father..._

_He'll be off ter church, by now, repentin' of his sins - an', well, he should. Closer, Anna..._

_Why do ye keep ter the shadows, sir? Are ye not well?_

_The light - it bothers my eyes, just now..._

_And I know the reason why! Out again all night, is it? Drinkin' an' whorin' - I can smell the stink of it on ye!_

_And a good mornin' ter you, too, Father._

_Have ye not had enough debauchery fer one night? Must ye corrupt the servants, as well?_

_Servant, Father. We have_ one_servant. Anyway, everyone gets corrupted, but I find some forms of corruption...are more pleasant -_

_You're a disgrace._

_If ye say so, Father._

_Oh, I do. I do say so. You're a layabout an' a scoundrel an' ye'll never amount ter anythin' more'n that!_

_Liam! Ye'll do as I say!_

_Sweet Kathy. No tears just now. We'll meet again._

_Oh, no, you won't! Not so long as I live!_

_Ye'll want to move away from the door now, Father._

_Go through it, but don' ever expect ter come back!_

_As ye wish, Father -_ always, just_ as you wish._

_It's a_ son _I wished fer! A_ man!_ Instead, God gave me _you!_ A terrible disappointment!_

_Disappointment? My whole life, ye've told me, in word - in_ glance_, what it is you've required of me an' I've lived down ter yer every expectation, now, haven't I?_

_That's madness!_

_No, the madness is that I couldn' fail enough fer ye, but we'll fix that, now won't we?_

_Oh, I fear fer you, lad._

_And is that the only thing ye can find in yer heart fer me now, Father?_

_Who'll take ye in, hm? No one!_

_I'll not lack fer a place ter sleep, I can tell ye that. Out of my way!_

_I was never in yer way, boy..._

_If you go courtin' trouble, yer sure ter find it!_

Harry snapped awake, drenched in sweat, to find himself in what seemed to be in inn, surrounded by his family, bright sunshine flowing through the window to the east.

A breakfast tray, which Hermione or Luna seemed to have kept warmed for him, sat to his left and immediately the overwhelming sensation of hunger came over him and he reached for the first thing he saw - bangers of some kind - but Hermione lightly smacked his hand away and pushed him gently back to the pillows. She began casting Freshening Charms over him and he felt the filth and darkness that had overwhelmed him in Wizarding Galway slide back from him as though a greasy film had covered his soul.

Panting slightly, Harry slumped back into the massive pillows behind him and stared longingly at the food as Hermione passed him what he was surprised to find was more Restorative Draughts and Strengthening Potions. He drank them each and then sank into the pillows yet again.

"You've been out cold for two days, Harry," Dudley's worried voice said, then, and Harry finally managed to find his glasses next to him and put them on. Everyone around him was in different clothing than they had been and he, himself, was in now-freshened pajamas.

Other trays of food had collected in the corner where the others had eaten while he'd lain...comatose or whatever, but none of them had actually left the room.

For that, he was immeasurably grateful.

"I..." Harry's voice was hoarse and Hermione immediately poured him water from a pitcher and urged him to drink before gesturing to his food and Harry finally started to eat, speaking in between swallows.

"I...I think those three ghosts in particular - Dudley - were some of our ancestors. They paid more attention to us than any of the others and I - received - more of their memories when my Patronus touched me."

"You glowed bright white and floated up into the air!" Dudley interrupted, obviously still horrified. "Then you fell to the ground and didn't move at all, even when - when Neville and Hermione each tried to use magic to revive you. We thought you were dying except that your pulse never flickered."

"They - " Harry swallowed a large bite of tomato and chased it with Irish breakfast tea, which was markedly different than what he was used to and, given the warm feeling he felt flow through him once he'd swallowed it, he suspected had some whiskey in it. "They kind of...turned me into a Pensieve, I'd wager. At least that's what it felt like. It felt like going into Snape's memories after he died."

Hermione gasped, as did Neville, but Luna merely listened patiently, while Dudley looked confused.

"Pensieve?"

"A bowl-like device that magical people use to extract memories and examine them more closely in-depth from a more - objective point of view," Hermione explained patiently. "So you found out what happened to all of them?"

"Sort of," Harry said uneasily, concentrating on his fried eggs now. "It was mostly focused on the little girl, though, actually, she was fourteen so I shouldn't say that - but her name was Katherine O'Leary - and her family, her big brother, Liam O'Flaherty - they had different mothers and different last names as a result - was the one whose memories I saw the most of. His father treated him kind of like my aunt and uncle treated me, except...different, somehow. Like he _did_ love his son, but couldn't figure out how to show Liam that until it was far too late.

"It was only after Liam was dead and buried that his father stayed to watch over his grave. I could feel his feelings. He was full of so much regret and love, it...it hurt. He failed his son and staring at his gravestone, there, had finally driven that point home..."

Another flash richocheted through Harry's mind, just then, **Beloved Son** carved into a headstone, and Harry sighed and lay back, staring at the ceiling. "He couldn't find the words to tell his son he loved him until after he was dead and the words all but wasted. That same son rose as a vampire later that night and then began to massacre the village. He did the worst damage after his father was dead, though."

_You told me I was nothing. And I believed you._

"He made his sister and stepmother's deaths quick, but dragged his father's out much longer in comparison. He told his father everything he'd been unable to say as a living man. And then..." Harry stared down at his half-eaten banger before forcing himself to shove it in his mouth, chew, and swallow.

Harry's voice became quiet, his tone somber, "Then he killed him. The rest of the village went after that. The groundskeeper of the graveyard was his first kill, though. After he finally killed his father, his sire told him he'd never be able to rise above the other man because his father was dead and couldn't give his approval of anything Liam did."

Harry looked at Hermione. "That prayer you said over Snape's grave. That prayer was that man - the groundskeeper's last words. He was interrupted when the fledgling vampire Liam tore open his throat."

Hermione's hand came up to cover her mouth and Harry could see she and Luna were both crying again.

"But - wait, Harry," Dudley said in a would-be calm voice. "If he destroyed the whole village, then how would any of them be related to us?"

"Because...Liam was - " Harry winced and sighed, rolling his eyes at his ancestor's manwhoring. "Because he basically slept with anything wearing skirts and not all of them stayed in their parts of the village or county. Some of them were Muggles, some of them witches - others Squibs. He didn't particularly care, since all he wanted was to drown in his misery. It was all his father expected of him and he gave up trying to do anything else several years before he died. Anyway, down and down his various lines of heredity went, without his knowledge, and finally here we are. But Liam - er, he became the vampire Angelus - "

Hermione and Luna both gasped outright and Harry gave them odd looks.

"I _told_ you to pay attention to Professor Binns, Harry!" Hermione pestered, but Harry threw up his hands as it was far too late for that now.

"I expect we've been lectured on him?"

"Yes!" Hermione shot back feverishly, reaching into her bag and pulling out a thick binder of probably all the notes she'd taken during their entire school career.

"You expect me to look through that!" Harry exclaimed, but Hermione rolled her eyes and merely pointed her wand at it. "Angelus - The One With the Angelic Face."

A wispy, smoke-like apparition of what had to be Angelus, except in more modern clothing - that of the nineteenth century - than those of his deceased relatives and neighbors, rose up out of the book and turned to face Harry, whose heart lurched yet again.

The 'figure' wasn't speaking, but its face shifted back and forth from that of a man to a demon several times before Hermione ended the spell and Angelus 'collapsed' back into her notes.

Harry swallowed, "So he's still around, then."

Hermione huffed yet again. "If you and Ron hadn't slept through half our periods with Binns, you might know that Angelus went to the United States in the early nineteen hundreds and completely fell off the map. No one knows why or how. He's just never been heard from since then."

"He's been sighted several times, actually," Luna chimed in and everyone else turned to her. "My father said that Angelus had given up his given name as a vampire and just goes by 'Angel' now. He said the Muggles pulled him into some kind of mission during the first war with Grindelwald because it involved the Muggles messing around with vampires and trying to control them. They've tried the same thing with both vampires and the Vampire Slayers that hunt them, but they've never had any success. They finally chose Angel because he was the only vampire they could actually control. He - my father didn't know why they could, though.

"There was also something involving a large Muggle inn in a city called Los Angeles to the south of the Mouth of Hell...everyone was massacred there, too, but it wasn't a vampire - the Muggles did it, themselves. My father said it was a paranoia demon that affected them. They couldn't see it, of course, so nothing was ever done about it."

Hermione obviously decided to give Luna the benefit of the doubt because she began extrapolating from what Luna had provided. "Right, so, if Angelus - Angel came to the United States in the early twentieth century, then he went through the port of Ellis Island, most likely, since anyone coming from Europe at the time went through New York and then dispersed from there.

"There probably wouldn't be any record of him since he most likely stowed away, but there was just enough of a trail for whoever recruited him for that mission during what nonmagical people call World War II - there was another war from 1914 to roughly mid 1918 that anyone raised as a Muggle refers to as World War I, though a worldwide influenza epidemic - I'll explain that some other time - struck around the same time so even more people died and the records rather mixed the two death tolls together so there isn't really an accurate account - but, anyway, they used the trail he unwittingly left to find him. Someone or an organization with the skill to find and track demons."

Luna continued where Hermione left off, "The Watcher's Council - they're the ones that find and guide Vampire Slayers. The Demon Research Initiative pays more attention to demons, themselves, but either would have both the power and resources to find and use someone like Angel. The Watcher's Council is headquartered in London, though I don't think anyone knows exactly where, and the Demon Research Initiative is in the States - possibly their capitol, which would make the most sense."

Harry found himself bouncing from Hermione to Luna and back again. Each made sense and built a whole picture instead of simply a partial one.

"But none of them would be anything we'd have access to," Harry muttered, raising his right hand to chew on his knuckle. "There'd have to be certain places in the States were there are enclaves of everything, just like here in Europe. Probably wizarding cities and towns, and even with Muggles - places where weird stuff just happens."

"La Boca Del Infierno," Luna said decisively, but for the first time since they'd left Hogwarts, Hermione scoffed.

"The Mouth of Hell is just a myth. Professor Binns said - "

"Professor Binns said the Chamber of Secrets was a myth, too - got pretty angry about it when everyone wanted to know about it," Neville cut in finally and Hermione froze before sinking slighly, looking chastised.

"Right, so, La Boca Del Infierno, the Mouth of Hell - so, what, demons just - go there?" Harry was keen to get things moving again.

"It's reputed to be something like a bug zapper for demons and dark forces, in general," Hermione admitted irritably, causing Dudley and Harry both to snort and chuckle.

"But it would make sense that Angel went there," Harry encouraged eagerly.

Hermione sighed heavily. "Presumably. But, Harry, Professor Binns said it also sits underneath a small town in California called _Sunnydale_! Does it sound like anything evil's going to be cropping up there anytime soon?"

"Does the rest of Galway look like a massacre took place just down the road? I mean, look at the loch we passed on the way there that several of the villagers gave me memories of - you said before we ever left that it was the largest in all of Ireland, and then there's the beautiful mountain ranges that bleed into Galway Bay - I honestly want to know, I've been knocked out with a front row seat to all the killing that went on there - in a village otherwise surrounded by mundane Muggle life!"

Harry wasn't yelling, simply insistent. He, after all, wouldn't ever be able to forget what he'd been shown by these people as long as he lived.

Hermione bit her lip again before finally throwing up her hands. "Fine. Fine! But, Harry...you've got that look in your eye...that 'I've got a crazy idea that might get us killed but we should do it anyway because I think it's important and even if it might get me killed, I at least want to try'.

Harry gave her a small smile as Neville and Luna both laughed in agreement. "Gee, Hermione, I didn't know I could say so much without speaking."

"Well, Harry Potter, I've known you for nearly seven and a half years! I'd better know what your face says by now! What's your idea?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "We try to clean up wizarding Galway."

At the ringing silence that followed, Harry continued, "There've been tons of people displaced by the war, all over England, let alone in other places. A whole chunk of Ireland is sitting there like a huge Shrieking Shack - "

"But Harry, this isn't like the Shrieking Shack!" Hermione squeaked, earning looks that she ignored. "Actual _murders_ took place there!"

"Two and a half centuries ago, Hermione!" Harry said heatedly. "Those ghosts don't just want to end their own suffering. I've seen their thoughts now, as I've just said! They want their home to become one again - for people to be able to feel safe there and for things to just...go back to normal. It's like - with them, it's like the first and second Wizarding wars combined over a week! They've had to stay mired in that trauma for centuries! You don't think they deserve to get a chance at a better version of the afterlife their were consigned to? They want to see living beings again, not just relive one another's deaths over and over for the rest of time."

Hermione hesitated and Harry drove his point home hard, "Remember in the Department of Mysteries when that Death Eater fell into the Time Room and broke open the hourglass and his life kept spinning over and over until finally he was stuck as half his infant self? He was crying and we were going to hex him and you told me - "

"You can't hurt a baby," Hermione said in a slightly tired voice. "Sometimes I wish you wouldn't listen to me."

Harry snorted again, "Liar. You wouldn't do that to them, Hermione. If we can't free them, then we can't, but at least we'd be able to say we tried."

Hermione glared momentarily at Harry before finally nodding. "Fine. Fine, I guess it's worth a try. I suppose you're going ahead to California?"

Harry frowned, "Not yet. I at least want to try to help a bit. Neville will probably have to be in charge of the copious plant life. The rest of us would get ourselves killed. It's probably all feral."

Hermione chuckled despite herself as Neville smirked and nodded. Neville then turned to Dudley. "Are you staying here or going on ahead with Harry?"

Dudley froze before forcing himself to relax. "Well...um...Harry said it was supposed to be a village of both magical and nonmagical people and that people had been displaced by the war and need homes now. I'm...one of those people. One of the - the displaced. I'm - I'm not one to go looking for trouble anymore. If Harry wants to go to the Mouth of Hell, then he's welcome to it, but I think I'll stay here."

"You realize you'll have to work," Neville said seriously. "Harry told us how your parents made him do most of it and you never lifted a finger."

Dudley flushed deeply in embarrassment, but rather than object in any way, he merely nodded. "I understand. I...it's the least I owe Harry for all the rubbish I put him through, say nothing of my parents."

Harry refrained from staring at Dudley, but it was difficult. "Okay, then," he said finally. "Let's go to work."

_...Come join the Youth and Beauty Brigade...Nothing can stand in our way..._

The days began to blur again as Harry braved his body's response to the decimation of his and Dudley's ancestors to not only surreptitiously Apparate and Side-Along Luna and Dudley back to wizarding Galway from the Muggle section of the city, but to attempt to rebuild the wasted buildings and environs, even taking time to rest at certain points and actually explore the surrounding area in ways he'd never been able to do while in the U.K. at any point.

At one rather humorous point, Harry, Hermione, and Dudley explained the Muggle concept of fishing to Luna and Neville, even going so far as to have Hermione conjure up fishing poles and spend an entire afternoon at the _Lough Corrib_ having a tournament of 'Muggle-raised versus Wizard-raised' with the main rule being no magic allowed. Dudley had almost jumped out of his skin at the selkies, kelpies, and merrows in the water around them.

Surprisingly Luna won, with more than ten fish as opposed to Harry's eight and Dudley's six. Harry supposed it was a bit like the creatures in the Forbidden Forest and how they'd taken more easily to Luna than anyone else. Hermione came in last, with only two, something Harry still felt was very good for her as she was still usually the best at everything else they did.

The five of them went back to the first house that they'd managed to make somewhat habitable so far - the horrible smell of blood was finally gone (none of them had been able to stomach any meat or fish during this process, instead looking for and multiplying as many edible plants as they could and reveling in their lack of viscera) and they were able to see the actual wooden planks of flooring underneath all the calcification and grime that Hermione and Luna had carefully carved through with magic while Harry and Neville had filled in any holes in the walls and Scourgified all the built-up dirt and other matter that caked the walls.

Neville had personally taken Dudley under his wing, so to speak, while Harry had gone ahead and began weeding and mowing the massive mounds of Muggle plant life, only calling Neville in if he ran into magical vegetation that he hadn't had enough exposure to in Herbology, including - as he'd warned Betelguese - an entire patch of wild mandrakes that he, Luna, and Neville conjured everyone earmuffs for before slowly beginning the process of yanking and instantly destroying all of the mandrakes, here having razor sharp teeth and a distinct taste for human limbs.

Neville surmised that it had been the atmosphere they'd grown in, what with the blood probably soaking into the soil all around.

Harry tried not to think about what that meant.

On some days, they purposely took more frequent and longer breaks than usual to go up into the _Na Beanna Beola, Na Sléibhte Mhám Toirc_, and _Sliabh Echtghe_ mountain ranges and see what they could find or discover. It was here that they found - to Harry's great surprise - several wild phoenixes and auguries.

Around the bottom of the _Sliabh Ectghe_ range, they found a colony of live thestrals and it was found that Dudley was the only person who couldn't see them. When the reason why was explained to him, Dudley did something he'd never done before and actually turned to give Harry the first hug either of them had ever gotten from one another.

It was strange, working alongside Dudley, watching him put his still-considerable muscle mass to decent use instead of harming others. Even stranger, it had been Dudley who again brought up the problem of how they were going to get displaced Wizarding and Muggle families from the other Isles to this now admittedly larger section of western Ireland. It had been slow going at first, but Harry found now that their work was paying off and the original buildings and land were actually habitable by now, the evidence of the destruction that had happened here having disappeared further with each day they'd worked from morning until well after dusk.

Hermione and Luna had even worked out plans for new buildings and houses and put them to use, even figuring out a Charm that created a special Floo for the village to connect it back to the Muggle section without being obvious about any of it the way unconcentrated Apparition and Disapparition would with the noises it created. The villagers no longer expected to live alongside wizards, after all, and the shock of it would cause ripples throughout Ireland that didn't need to felt if it could be avoided.

All the while, Harry would go to the graveyard every day, put on the Spectro-Specs Luna gave him, and talk to his ancestors, whom he eventually managed to coax out of their self-imposed isolation for at least part of the day.

Kathy, he found out, _was_ fourteen, as he'd suspected, and had been a fourth year in Galway County's wizarding school system at the time, though she'd spent several hours a day getting Muggle cirriculum instruction from her older brother, as he'd constantly told her that she shouldn't shackle herself to the ways of everyone around her, Liam telling her there was a whole world out there that they'd someday see together and she needed to be prepared. It wouldn't do for some stranger to think she was a fool when she was anything but.

Kathy had cried when recounting Liam's words as she'd proven herself just that, in her own eyes, when she'd invited his dead self back into their home when she'd seen him buried.

Harry tried to reassure her, to tell her he'd've done the same thing in her situation, that he constantly wanted to see the people in his life he'd lost every moment of every day.

It had taken showing her the Resurrection Stone and, without putting it on, recounting the names of the many people he'd see again in a heartbeat if not for the fact that he knew he'd be disturbing their rest. Kathy had tearfully asked him if a funeral Mass had been said for any of them and Harry had guiltily told her that while living with his aunt and uncle, neither he nor their cousin - for Kathy felt very much like another cousin to him now - Dudley had been taken to Mass or church or anything of the sort.

_Superstitious hogwash_, his uncle had always said. His aunt had always flinched, but had toed Vernon Dursley's line.

Kathy had frowned and drifted off to talk to the priest of the old village, who'd come to speak to Harry henceforth, asking him to bow his head while the much older man said a quiet funeral Mass for everyone lost in both Wizarding wars that Harry could name.

Hearing their names, one by one, on the ghost's low lilting voice had brought tears to Harry's eyes and, for the first time in his life, Harry had copied what Kathy and the priest each did and performed the Sign of the Cross, blessing himself, kissing a symbolic crucifix before wiping his eyes, his chest heaving with the feeling of remembering all the voices of those that had been talked about.

For the first time in his life, Harry had the sensation that they might actually be able to truly rest now.

_Constant vigilance!_

Harry bolted awake, somewhat tangled in the blankets around him in the rebuilt house they'd chosen to spend this night in, his brain scrambling to translate the words back into something he could recognize. He'd heard Irish so often now - both from Katherine, her father, Connor, mother Ailbhe, and the other ghosts, as well as the Muggles whenever they went into the city for supplies or other necessities, like food to multiply, his mind somehow turning it into comprehensible words and he slowly realized he'd begun speaking Irish whenever he spoke to Katherine or, more rarely her parents.

Trying to utilize what he did when he spoke Parseltongue and switch back to English, Harry took a deep breath and spent a moment remembering the raid he, Hermione, and...Ron...had performed on the Ministry, Harry, himself, taking the time to remove Mad-Eye's magical eye from Umbridge's door and realized he'd never gotten a chance to bury it in all the chaos that had happened when Yaxley had grabbed onto Hermione's ankle when they'd tried to Apparate back to Grimmauld Place.

Scrambling out of bed, Harry quickly pulled on some clothing and quietly slipped out into the hall, yanking on his shoes before inching down toward Hermione's current bedroom, whispering _Expecto Patronum_ and watching his Thestral patronus - it turned out his Patronus form had changed permanently - slip out of his holly wand and slide underneath Hermione's door, waiting for the inevitable squeak and then wincing when she threw open her bedroom door, an extremely annoyed expression on her face for how he'd chosen to wake her up.

"You could have just come in and shaken me, you know!" Hermione hissed while Transfiguring her own clothes in favor of expedience. Harry shook his head.

"'Ermione," he whispered in the more than slight Irish brogue he'd picked up over his time here. "If ye'd been asleep in yer knickers, I never would've been able ter forgive meself. Besides, I spend a good quarter o' the day talkin' ter Puritanical Irish Catholic ghosts from two an' a 'alf centuries ago. They're rubbin' off, they are."

Hermione's left eye twitched shut for half a second before she found herself smirking, "No kidding. Fine. Just let me get the mokeskin pouch and we'll do what you've gotten me up for. At least it wasn't something stupid, like you've forgotten how to get to Greater Galway again."

They'd decided to call the new village Little Galway and the outerlying Muggle section Greater Galway on any Wizarding maps that Hermione would personally see were created henceforth.

"That was _one time_, the _first_ time!" Harry bit out irritably, flushing red nonetheless, and Hermione smirked harder in satisfaction as she got her revenge for being woken at 'WAY TOO EARLY!' - she had subsequently checked the rather complicated clock they'd installed in the hallway earlier in the day, one that told both Muggle and Wizarding time with numbers in both twelve and twenty-four hour cycles, solar, and lunar cycles, as well as taking a leaf out of the Weasleys' book and telling where a particular person was at the moment.

Harry, Luna, and Dudley had taken great pleasure in deciding what would go on the clock face. Luna had charmed it to change the names for whomever lived in the house at any particular time. Hermione readily said it was a very lovely piece of magic and admitted that it was one of the few things she couldn't do. Harry had smiled the entire previous day.

Neville, Luna, and Dudley's hands all said 'dead asleep', but both Harry and Hermione's hands said 'up at what seems a revolting hour so they'd better have ruddy good reason'. Harry winced and sighed, guessing that his hand had previously been set on 'I'M SO AWAKE'. Immediately, though, his hand switched to 'planning something vitally important' and he tried to get back to business.

"So you'll do this with me, eh? Ye'll help me...?" Harry trailed off, his eyes now glued to the bag in a mournful fashion Hermione found so awful she immediately hugged Harry and whispered, "Of course I will, Harry. It's just so unfair...all these...these tombs of unknown soldiers."

Harry had to admit that spending so much time with Hermione had done wonders for his sense of curiosity about the actual world and other people, which had suffered terribly under both the Dursleys and his 'friendship' with Ron, where anything scholastic had been frowned upon, punished, and later met with undue derision.

For now, though, Harry and Hermione cast warming charms on themselves and ventured out into the otherwise chilly morning air and over to the outer perimeter of the now expanded graveyard the village contained before Harry knelt and dug a small hole, gently placing the roving eye he'd removed from the mokeskin pouch and covering it with dirt before removing his wand and taking a nearby stone, carving a large cross with 'Alastor Moody - CONSTANT VIGILANCE' carved into the cross-sections before sticking it securely in the soil around the freshly dug hole and using his wand to create a small stone plate around the cross so that it wouldn't be disturbed by anything involuntary.

When he looked back at Hermione, she was crying again. Harry blushed deeply and climbed to his feet. They returned to their respective rooms, then, but Harry had a feeling that neither of them went back to sleep.

What became a regular occurrence over their time here, Harry few free hours they'd given themselves had subsequently been spent at National University of Ireland at Galway, where while more than a few students and faculty had recognized him, none of them had actually lost their heads and interrupted what turned into Harry beginning to understand what Hermione had always loved about Hogwarts library, as well as the other ones she'd visited with her parents, giving him plenty of time to read up on many Muggle things he'd missed while a student at Hogwarts and trapped at the Dursleys' in between.

In short, he was remembering how to love learning and simply enjoying himself again.

So when he first quoted from The Chronicles of Narnia to Hermione, she'd squealed in delight and began a sort of competition with him, quoting from various books and seeing if Harry could guess what she was talking about. He'd flat-out failed her first 'exam' and, since then, had been making trips every other day to the university and Greater Galway in general to fix this obvious hole, he felt, was in his intellect.

Dudley and Neville had merely rolled their eyes at first and each continued working, but eventually Luna got in on the act, quoting Muggle books her mother had bought for her before her death. Before long, Harry's fumbles and gaffes became fewer and fewer and both Hermione and Luna had given him proud smiles.

As a sort of inside joke, Harry had carved, in tiny letters, along one doorjamb, _Up in the sky, it's a bird - it's a plane, no, it's Superman! Faster than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! It's Superman!_

Hermione and Dudley had both found this hilarious, even though both Luna and Neville were left out of the loop until the others explained the origin of those words to them.

It became a bit of a game, leaving tiny carvings all over the village for one another to find - both Wizarding and Muggle culture references - a pact with one another to make this village as bi-culturally friendly as possible.

Luna surprised everyone with using permanent, waterproofed paint to write _You're My Only Hope_ on one of the large moss-covered rocks they used to anchor the new paddock that now led to the Bay before sinking it beneath the water.

Hermione tried to top her by writing _I Am Darkness, I Am The Night_ into one of the bars of the new gate that opened into the village and outward into the road to Greater Galway. Harry and Dudley both stared at her for a full five minutes before she got irritated and shoved them away, saying, "I'm not completely socially inept, you know! I do watch movies and television while not studying!"

All Harry could do was make an unintelligible sound of shock and watch as Hermione strode confidently away. Dudley, in turn, asked, "Hey, Hermione, do you think they'd notice a flux capacitor in the middle of the fountain Neville just installed?"

"You don't even know what a flux capacitor is supposed to do! Does anyone?" Harry objected, laughing, and Hermione only shook her head.

"'I don't have low self-esteem, I have low esteem for everyone else'? Really, Hermione, you're getting bitter in your old age!" Neville joked, but Hermione simply flipped her dusty hair at him and asked him what she was quoting, grinning wickedly when he couldn't answer, thus causing him to blush vibrantly.

Dudley finally declared Harry the winner when he found what was merely the sound effect _SNIKT_ carved in rather large letters, considering, under a bench he'd been about to paint an inviting shade of sky blue.

Throughout it all, Harry found his theory to be correct as the ghosts became more and more jovial as time went on, finally letting themselves become visible without the help of Spectro-Specs and speaking without the aid of a Patronus Charm to make them feel safe once more.

A sinking feeling entered Harry's chest as he realized it was almost time for him to leave in search of the Hellmouth and...Angel.

Harry never said anything but, as luck would have it, he turned away from packing his bag his last night to find the others watching him sadly from his doorway.

"Hope you weren't planning on just going and not saying goodbye, cousin," Dudley said with a small, sad smile on his face.

Harry smiled back, just as sadly. "No. I was just...preparin'. I...should go soon."

"And so ye likely should," Dudley said, surprising Harry. Hermione gave up on all pretense and swiftly gathering Harry in another hug, leaving him uncomfortably hot under the collar again - why this seemed the happen now whenever a girl hugged him or said anything complimentary to him, Harry didn't know. He wondered if it had something to do with Voldemort's damaged soul leaving him a while less than normal before, certainly more human boy now.

He didn't once remember either Cho or Ginny making him feel this way before the Horcrux was removed. It was as if those feelings and sensations had been denied him as a walking Dark object.

He hoped he'd be able to face a girl again soon without his body reacting so obviously, at least to him. When he'd covertly complained about it to Dudley and Neville each, both had given him sympathetic looks but bemoaned the fact that they'd put up with it for far longer.

"Ye give 'late bloomer' a whole new meanin', Harry," Neville had needled, knowing everyone had called him one regarding his 'sudden' magical prowess.

"Well, neither o' ye had a chunk o' sociopath in any o' yer scars!" Harry had sniped back, thoroughly put out. He'd read up on all sorts of subjects at the university library. Thomas Marvolo Riddle had definitely fit the bill, though he'd apparently had an adjustment disorder beforehand that had been thoroughly ignored by the Wizarding world, who didn't seem to think that psychology was anything worth thinking about.

"It would o' have saved thousands o' lives," Harry had muttered to himself, packing his newly checked out books into his reinforced bag at the time. "Conduct Disorder - Oppositional Defiant Disorder - Sociopathy - Psychopathy. Honestly, it's bloody obvious..."

At dinner on Harry's last official night, Kathy and her parents saw fit to attend with Harry and Hermione making sure to provide some thorougly rotted, fetid food the way they'd seen at Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday party so many years ago. Hermione sat close to Harry, almost certainly ignorant of the warm flush her proximity was sending through him and he was determined to keep it that way.

Luna had taken it upon herself to get Neville and Dudley's help building a very large bonfire for them to sit around in the nearby pasture while Harry specifically had a conversation with Katherine and Liam's father at Kathy's behest.

"He loved ye very much," Harry said quietly, digging into the fully-dressed baked potato and taking a hearty bite as Connor O'Reilly moved slowly over the rotten fish he'd been provided with in a vain effort to 'taste' it. By now, the sights and smells of such things had fully ceased to bother the living among them as they'd been steeped in the smell of blood for more than two weeks before they'd managed to clean enough for it to dissipate.

Connor sighed heavily, a sound that made Harry wince. "I...became aware o' that far, far too late. I thought...he didn't care fer anyone other'n 'imself. In short, I was a fool."

But Harry shook his head, "You were so desperate ter help 'im, ye fergot ter look _at_ him. Trust me, me mam's best friend - once - he did the same thing. It wasn' until after he died, as well, that he saw me fer who I really am. I'm not James Potter, nor Lily Evans. I'm just Harry. Just Harry and not like anyone else."

Connor sighed, reaching out to touch Harry's hand and Harry managed not to flinch at the ice-cold feeling that flooded through him.

"Yer goin' ter find Liam," Connor said softly, letting go of Harry's hand to his immense inward relief. "When ye do, if...if he wants ter hear it...please tell 'im I'm sorry. That I love...have always loved him an' that he deserved better."

Connor looked at his daughter, then, who had pearly tears leaking from her eyes as she listened to her father's words for who knew what number time.

"Both my children deserved more than they received from me. The blood on Liam's hands is more on mine. He's a better man than I because he actually learned from his mistakes, even if it took time. Promise me ye'll tell 'im that, if ye can. Tell 'im we love him...so much..."

Connor looked away, then, and Harry looked down so as to give the ghost what privacy he could as what he knew to be silvery tears began to fall yet again.

Harry nodded, "I promise."

_...One more thing, why is it my fault?...See, maybe I tried too hard...And it's all because of this desire...Just want to be liked, just want to be funny - looks like the joke's on me...So call me Captain Backfire..._

When Harry Apparated silently into her back garden, Petunia Dursley had to physically stop herself from screaming, though it was a near thing. As it was, she tried to content herself with hoping against hope that her nephew would burst into flames. When that gambit failed, Petunia put her hands over face momentarily before letting them drop.

"Will you please - just get it over with?"

Harry sighed and ran his hand through his freshly cut hair, having stopped in Dublin on the way back so he didn't look like a dark yeti walking up the street. Wearing a newly tailored suit given to him as a 'thank you' from the witch in the department store he'd stopped in for his haircut, Harry looked nothing like the ragged little snot she'd been accustomed to. He certainly no longer reminded her of Severus Snape which, true to Harry's word, Petunia hadn't been able to forget. Damn them all.

"I really am sorry, ye know," Harry said quietly and Petunia snorted delicately in utter disbelief, though she did a slight double take at the brogue he'd picked up while off wherever he'd gone. Ireland, obviously, but she'd allowed herself to remember precious little else and wished she'd been able to keep it that way. Harry sighed and leaned forward onto the white table she sat at, the umbrella casting sudden shadow on his features and he reached up to tap his glasses with his wand so that they became clear again instead of the sunglasses he'd arrived with.

His eyeglasses were brand-new, as well, Petunia noted suddenly. She didn't remember the exact date she'd taken Harry to buy his old ones, but it was when he had just started primary school, she knew. The frames had been large on his face, then, making his eyes resemble those of an owl. Another thing to shut him in his cupboard about, not that he'd known it then.

"I know you don' believe me," Harry said softly, ignoring Petunia's ensuing scoff. "But all...when I was in that cupboard, all I could think abou' was what it was I could possibly..."

His voice was slowly becoming British again and Petunia found herself unable to resist looking up. Harry's eyes were clenched shut now and Petunia was disturbed to see tears wending their way down the planes of his face. Lily's face.

_...Where do I fit in, in this jigsaw of a relationship...Why should I play the fall guy to your love?...I keep getting snowed, what dumb luck - what dumb luck...So rub it in..._

"What I could possibly do to make you and Uncle Vernon not hate me anymore. It was a long time before I realized there was...nothing I could do. It was...it was just a part of me, what you hated, and there wasn't anything I could do about it at all. So the only thing I _could_ do was learn to...control it. Use it for my protection. And sometimes that had to be against you and yours. And I won't apologize for that, Aunt Petunia. I refuse to apologize anymore for being me. Anymore than _you_ should have to actually apologize for not having magic."

Petunia gasped, then, and as much as Harry knew she was trying to ignore him, she was failing utterly.

"You and I - and Dudley, since you haven't asked about him - come from a very, very long line of half-bloods, for lack of a better descriptive term. Everyone of us has had magic, just different levels. It just happened that my mother was the first to have enough to qualify for a magical school and that was why my grandparents were so proud of her. She beat genetics, I guess."

Harry reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, thankful for the sunblocking charms Hermione had taught him. "Still, the point is that as much as you cling to what you think is 'normal', the fact is, you're trying for a pipe-dream. It'll never happen. It's too much for me to hope you'll ever be okay with that at this point, but at least..."

Harry looked around and noticed that Uncle Vernon's car was gone, but - considering the rather early hour of the day, as well as Aunt Petunia's lack of tears, Harry could only surmise that his uncle hadn't abandoned his wife. Well, good, then.

"At least you two have each other. That's something, I suppose."

Petunia scrunched up her face at him. Harry noted she didn't ask about Dudley at all. So she hadn't changed at all, then. Pity.

Then she surprised him, finally slumping slightly and actually - voluntarily - looking Harry in the face for the first time either could remember.

"What do you want, Harry?"

Harry's eyes widened slightly and he reached into his pocket and glanced at the pocketwatch he'd stopped at Gringott's this last go 'round and picked up while emptying his family vaults. Petunia's eyes widened at what she saw was obviously not a 'normal' clockface, but she chose not to comment further.

"I need a ticket to...well, any of the airports in the States that will give me the shortest layover to California. Barring that, simply a ticket to New York."

Petunia stared up through her frowning eyebrows at him, but when he didn't betray the slightest hint of a joking manner, Petunia huffed and got up, glaring at Harry's expensive Muggle clothing as though she expected him to be playing some enormous prank on her and simply waiting for the punchline. She allowed him in her car, but not the passenger seat, and when they were at the bank, Petunia had to force herself not to look as though Harry had a gun at her back. Or his wand, for that matter.

Finally, after having taken one thousand pounds of her own money out of her rarely touched inheritance from Harry's own grandparents (she knew now that some of it was actually in British Wizarding money, but still refused to admit those existed no matter how many much more pounds they converted to) and then turned and stuffed the money into Harry's hand.

"I don't ever want to see you again, Harry, is that clear? Never!" Petunia hissed, once they were back in the parking lot, and then - true to her word - Petunia didn't so much as glance at him when she got back into her car and drove away.

She would never understand how much it meant to him now that she consistently called him by his name.

"Goodbye, Aunt Petunia. I love you," Harry whispered before sneaking around to the most secluded place he could find and Apparating to Heathrow Airport as quietly as he could.

Within hours, he was on a plane, staring at the ground as it took off, the mokeskin pouch Hagrid had given him carrying everything he personally owned hanging around his neck. Part of him had expected one of his wands or the Resurrection Stone to set off a detector of some kind, but they passed through without so much as the machinery going haywire. Harry privately wondered how many Muggle-raised wizards and witches took planes every day.

It was a very long flight, but Harry managed to sleep after using a ballpoint pen and regular paper to write letters to Dudley, Hermione, Luna, and Neville, all of whom were still in Little Galway. Then, after some thought, Harry wrote what turned into a very long letter to Professor McGonagall, telling her everything he'd found out and done after they'd parted ways.

The envelopes said, plainly, _Little Galway_ and _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_.

The flight attendant warned Harry to get up and walk around every few hours and he did so, studying the people around him in a way he'd never done before, resisting the now almost automatic urge to utilize Legilimency to see what they were thinking. He was getting bored and privately wondered how on Earth Professor Snape hadn't delved into the minds of everyone he saw, the temptation was so great.

It was with enormous relief that Harry woke up and found that the plane was landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., and, from there, he would be able to Apparate to Sunnydale.

He made the jump at once, wondering idly if he was going to Splinch himself over the Rocky Mountains or something, but glad all the same when he didn't.

Harry was aware that Apparating over long distances was not an ordinary Wizarding ability. He would attribute his having arrived at the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign in one piece to the Deathly Hallows except for the fact that he hadn't been holding any of them at the time.

He and Hermione had carefully placed Stasis Charms on them to attempt to contain the ambient magic that enthused them, and for the first time in a very long while, Harry had merely used his holly wand when gathering as much of his magical core into itself as possible, something they had all - even Dudley - been practicing as often as possible to see how well they could do so.

The first time Harry had done this and cast a spell, _Lumos_, it was as if someone had plugged a car battery into his back as a blinding light almost threw him from his feet before he managed to think, _Nox_ as loudly as he could and it winked out, leaving spots dancing wildly across Harry's eyes and him temporarily blind until finally he could see clearly again.

He'd expected Hermione's to be just as bright, if not brighter, than his own light spell, but it seemed her talent lay in destruction instead, as her strongest spell turned out to be a _Reducto_ that blew a six-meter crevice down so far into the cobble beneath them that water actually began filling the hole. Hermione flushed wildly as she repaired the damage, but no one had laughed. For all intents and purposes, Hermione had just set off a bomb in an enclosed area. She was still a force to be reckoned with, mortified about it or not.

Neville had single-handedly tamed or, in a last resort, destroyed most of the deadly plants that had been living in Little Galway, Dudley's main assistance being to prune and mow the vast overgrowth, but Neville had cautioned him to wear dragonhide gloves at all times when working with the plants because of the danger of poison or his blood being spilt.

It had been the first time Harry had seen Dudley not only working, but seeming to enjoy himself doing it.

He had to say he was proud of his cousin.

Luna had, herself, been the one to figure out how to mix the electricity from Greater Galway with the magical light and gas lamps and candles that the wizarding world had always used to light critical areas of Little Galway at all times. Her mother's Charm work had clearly rubbed off on her the same way Lily Potter's had on Harry.

He was more sorry than he could properly express to part from them.

But now he was standing in front of the Mouth of Hell, possibly with the only family member aside from Dudley he had left that he could feel comfortable recognizing, and he had to continue.

Sighing heavily, Harry walked into Sunnydale, sheathing his wand as he went.

_...Whoever I was then, I can't ever be again..._

Not an hour later, Harry thought about removing his wand again and possibly using a Point Me spell, but that only worked for figuring out which way was North and was, thus, useless in trying to find a man more than two and a half centuries old, let alone convincing that man of their, however distant, relation.

It turned out not to be that difficult at all. Harry walked quickly into the main part of the town and, soon enough, found a by now incredibly familiar face slipping out of what appeared to be a club full of people his age, the burn of a cross clearly on his chest where his shirt wasn't fully buttoned.

Harry reached up unconsciously and touched the same spot on his own chest, covered instead by shirt and tie, and traced a cross pattern before watching Angel slink off into the darker parts of an already badly lit part of the town.

"Well, I'll be damned," he whispered and set off in pursuit of his many-greats-grandfather, removing and pulling the Cloak of Invisibility over him as he went.

_...You have to, you just have to trust me..._

...TBC...


	7. Reflection

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Rowling and Whedon own nearly all. Linkin Park. "Minutes to Midnight.". Warner Bros., 2007. AFI. "Decemberunderground.". Interscope., 2006.

**Summary:** Forcing himself to falsely breathe, Angel centered himself and stood tall, affecting control over the situation.

"I know you're there so you might as well cut the disappearing act."

**Notes:** Well, this one was an interesting ride. I hope you all think so, too.

**Notes, cont'd.** For lack of anything else to say, this story really excites me because of the avenues I can travel in it. *absolutely shivers*

Part V: Reflection

Angel felt a tingle down his spine and immediately all his senses went on high alert. It was patently obvious he was being followed even if whomever it was seemed strangely adept at doing so, despite the fact that Angel could clearly hear their heart beating hard in their chest.

They were nervous.

Good.

Angel scowled and ducked down a nearby alleyway, fully expecting whomever it was to follow him as most humans did in complete lack of self-preservation.

When the human simply stopped at the alleyway, yet Angel still couldn't see them, his surprise grew by leaps and bounds.

The strangest thing wasn't that the human, whoever they were, was invisible - that could be achieved with any number of spells or objects - but that a distinct scent of peat and moss clung to their skin, bathing Angel in a horrible mixture of both homesickness and revulsion.

Forcing himself to falsely breathe, Angel centered himself and stood tall, affecting control over the situation.

"I know you're there so you might as well cut the disappearing act."

To Angel's surprise, all he heard in return was a resigned sigh - his finely tuned hearing picking up an again odd mixture of both an Irish brogue and an English accent - and, oddly enough, the stranger simply whipped off what appeared to be a long, silvery, finely-spun cloak right out of a storybook...it was one, if his very long memory served him..._The Tales of Beedle the Bard_, if...Angel shoved that aside.

Angel blinked as the cloak revealed a young man not yet eighteen years old, but clearly of magical origin - Angel could feel his aura thrumming from all the space between them, as well as something else he couldn't quite define - but dressed in the suit of a Muggle or a Muggleborn with business outside the Wizarding world.

"Angel," the young man said with slight wariness, but more curiosity than anything else.

"Who are you?" Angel asked, not forgetting the irony of this situation considering how he and Buffy met months before.

The young man became busy with stuffing his cloak into what appeared to be a mokeskin pouch hanging around his neck, but answered nonetheless.

"To save time, I'll just say my name's Harry Potter and your name's Lia - "

"_Don't_ call me that," Angel growled, the sense of derealization that had come over him getting all the stronger as he struggled to control the maelstrom of feelings that now coursed through his veins, not helped by a powerful surge of adrenaline now present, as well.

He somewhat expected the boy before him to backpedal and quail as most humans - for he could definitely sense the lack of any sort of possession in the boy - would, but _Harry Potter_ did neither of those things. In fact, Harry simply sighed and waited patiently for Angel to calm down, it seemed.

"I see your point," Harry said quietly, absentmindedly running his hand over the strange scar on his forehead - like a bolt of lightning - before shoving his bangs down and straightening his glasses. "Do you have anywhere we could talk privately? I'd really rather not be out in public discussing family business."

"Family?" Angel asked incredulously, but then each froze as Buffy's voice rang out suddenly, obviously looking for Angel, himself, for whatever reason.

Without a word, Harry whipped his invisibility cloak back out and whirled it around his shoulders so that only his head was showing. He nodded to Angel and threw the hood over his head, backing up against the nearest wall of the alley they stood in while Angel walked back past him, trying to ignore the way his skin tingled unpleasantly with an unknown familiarity he couldn't place.

_Family business..._

Angel forced the frown back off his face and ran his hand through his own hair as Buffy walked up to meet him, the open doors of The Bronze blasting music over his ears and forcing him to back up slightly until he'd reacclimated again. He correctly interpreted the expression on Buffy's face as her thinking she had repulsed him somehow - had she so quickly forgotten their mutual promise to avoid one another...as he had?

_God..._

"I just...I wanted to give you this back," Buffy said haltingly, trying not to frown as she reached up to undo the cross around her neck, but  
Angel put his hands up. "No. No, you need that far too much. Besides, I...just think of it as the gift it is, as well as an addition to your arsenal."

"Right," Buffy laughed nervously, refastening the cross around her throat. "A girl can never have too many crosses in this town. It saved me from Luke...that night..."

Angel nodded, a small smile blossoming in his heart that he'd had anything to do with her continued survival.

"You should probably...well, the sun'll be up soon," Buffy hemmed, but Angel found himself chuckling a bit.

"I have plenty of time, Buffy, don't worry about me. You, on the other hand...well, you actually have a chance to get a decent night's sleep for once. Shouldn't you take it?"

"Well, look at you, worrying about me. That's probably unhealthy for you, what with all the crossbow bolts and bullets and stakes flying around...oh, and Fork Guy."

Angel tried not to smile again, "I told you, I'm fine. I heal fast, remember? You do, too."

Buffy nodded, an impish smile of her own on her face. "Well, since neither of us is going to sleep any time soon - did you really think a teenage girl with a whole night to herself was going to voluntarily give it up? Come on, Angel, you're not that old."

Angel had to actually force back a chuckle this time before sighing. "I want you to have the cross. Anything I can do for you is..."

'A gift', Angel had wanted to say, but suddenly Buffy froze and looked past him. "There's someone in that alley."

Angel's sensitive hearing picked up Harry swearing...in Irish, of all things...and beginning to back away from them, but Buffy was faster.

"Alright, obviously I can't have a decent conversation in this town without being eavesdropped on, so let's all just save each other the time and get the attacking over with because Angel's partially right - while I'm not going to bed right now, I do have school tomorrow."

Angel heard Harry sigh again before he turned to see Harry pull his invisibility cloak off very slowly so that it was as if he was eased into existence.

"Huh. A...something...that can make you invisible. Wow. Yay, more tools for vamps to make my life difficult. Alright, come on, bright boy, let's dance."

"Buffy, he's human," Angel interrupted and Buffy glanced back at him, confusion coming over her face.

"Wha...?"

"Listen hard. You can hear his heartbeat if you listen."

Buffy fumed a bit, but paused and closed her eyes, apparently doing as Angel said, before they snapped open and she demanded, "Who the hell are you?"

_...It's the place that I forget my life..._

Harry sat on the floor in Buffy's room, his arms around his knees, as he watched Buffy pace feverishly around, glancing back and forth between Angel, who stood respectfully next to her window, and Harry, himself.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" she hissed for what had to be the fiftieth time since Harry's story had started in the alley next to The Bronze. "I mean - he's - " Buffy gestured to Harry, who sighed again, resisting the urge to glance at Angel. "You're my age!" she objected in a feverish whisper.

"Says the Vampire Slayer in love with my however-many-greats-grandfather," Harry hissed back, now slightly offended at her complete lack of disbelief. "Trust me, I was surprised to find out about you just now. You're supposed to kill him! He's supposed to be trying to kill you in return, but we notice neither of you doing either of those things!"

Buffy halted and paused, a deep flush coming over her face even as Angel's own became all the paler.

"We're kind of aware of that, thank you," she said irritably, clenching her fists before forcing herself to relax. "You're...Angel's...great-grandson? But...again, you're, like, my age!"

Harry smirked, "I'm an adult in my - mine and Angel's world. According to the magical world, Slayers...well, they can't seem to figure out if you're a magical being or creature, actually."

At Buffy's deeply offended expression, Harry held up his hands, shrugging. "I didn't write the laws and disagree with loads of them, myself, but it's kind of like veela - vampires like Angel - werewolves, half-giants...the ministries - and, I guess, the secretaries like here and other countries where there are presidents - the ministries are of two minds about 'non-magical humanoid creatures' or whatever they want to call them. There's a Werewolf Victim Support Department geared toward _Beings_, for example, but fully-transformed werewolves are handled by the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures under the _Beast_ division. The magical world - or the British one, in my experience - is pants at making decisions so they just avoid doing so as long as possible."

"Pants?" Buffy asked, glancing at her own favorite leather pair hanging off a chair before noticing Angel holding back a smile.

"'Pants' basically means 'awful' where Harry and I are from, Buffy," Angel clarified quietly, finally managing to smother his smile. "It's actually a swear word, to be honest."

Buffy cringed, then, "And now you both get to have a nice giggle at the - "

"Perfectly decent American," Harry cut in. "I was listening to everyone in the pub while waiting for an opportunity to get Angel's attention or something and I couldn't understand a bloody thing any of you lot were saying."

Angel looked at the ceiling in a clear show of relief, "Dear God, finally a sane sentence."

Buffy made a face at Angel, but the return of his slight smile didn't reverse itself. He shrugged, himself, now. "I think of it as a language, Buffy. Luckily for me, I'm a linguist. I'll understand eventually."

Buffy blew out a breath, allowed her scowl to linger for a few more minutes, but then let it drop. "Okay, um, Harry - here's a question, you knew about Angel because of all kinds of research and stuff, but why did you know about...um, my Slayerness?" she finished in a whisper, self-consciously glancing at her locked door.

Harry sighed, reaching into his pocket to pull out a tiny, whirling top that was emitting a shrill, yet muted smoke detector-like noise. "Well, this was a tip-off at the start."

"A Sneakoscope," Angel muttered, narrowing his eyes down at it and Harry nodded before continuing.

"When people are hiding something, it goes off. Like how this whole situation is one big secret. But your talk about 'vamps' and having an arsenal of weapons and needing crosses, talking about Angel avoiding stakes - also a tip-off, though, again, I was surprised you two knew one another as something other than enemies."

Harry quirked his mouth to the side, blinking even as Buffy's blush returned with a vengeance. "Like I was saying earlier, I guess it sounds convenient or something, but the magical world counts us as adults when we turn seventeen, not eighteen like a lot of the Muggle world."

Harry paused before reconsidering after seeing Buffy's utterly confused expression even though he knew Angel would have understood, "Er, Muggles are non-magical people. Or that's what the majority of the magical world calls them, anyway.

"I prefer non-magical, mostly because the entire reason I found Angel in the first place was that I traced my family's lineage through my mother and it led through over two-hundred years of what the magical world would call 'Squibs' that had integrated into the non-magical world almost seamlessly.

"My mother was the first person in our family with enough magic to qualify for a magical school. She married my dad, a wizard with a completely magical background, and here I am. But I'm digressing again."

Harry sighed heavily, "The point is that I came here to find one of the few surviving links to my mother still around and I don't plan on going back to England in any case. I was hoping to go back to non-magical school if I could, but I realize I haven't attended one since fifth form, primary, so I'm very, very behind in this world. All of my education since I was eleven has been strictly in magic."

Angel nodded even as Buffy's eyes widened when she realized Harry basically hadn't learned much of anything past fifth grade. "Buffy and I know people who could help you catch up in maths and all that."

At Buffy's inquiring expression, Angel mouthed, 'Math. Willow and Giles' and, instantly, Buffy understood and nodded at Harry whose relief was palpable. Then her face contorted slightly in confusion. "So, what, you're not at all interested in keeping anything quiet?"

Harry frowned before shoving it down. "For the past two years everything's been a huge secret - no, ever since I went into the Wizarding world everything was a huge secret. The non-magical people in Britain have no idea there's wizards at all. There are laws against it."

Buffy raised a disdainful eyebrow before saying simply, "Here - or in Sunnydale, anyway - people just block out what they can't explain. It's really useful."

Harry snorted, "I bet it is. My aunt and uncle would have loved it here. They're obsessed with looking normal. Too bad it would have eventually driven Aunt Petunia mad. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget anything about the magical world that she learned whether she wanted to or not. Though she did an excellent job of pretending she was just like everyone else, I couldn't allow her to go on with that lie after forcing me to live in it for the sixteen years I spent in her house.

"It really would have served her right if my uncle had divorced her after finding out she's a Squib, but chances are he cares way too much what the neighbors think to actually go through with it no matter how much he might want to. He's probably trying to pretend it's not true. They've already disowned my cousin, Dudley, for accepting all this. He lives in Ireland with our mates now."

Harry said all this while staring disaffectedly at his shoes, so when he looked up he was surprised to see the unnerved looks on Buffy and, more importantly, Angel's faces.

"Where are you staying?" Angel's face was now even more serious than before.

Harry shrugged, "I figured I'd find a hostel or something."

Angel's subsequent frown was amusing to Buffy, but she managed to smother her giggle. Mostly.

"There's not enough room in my flat - er, apartment. We'll have to find somewhere for you that's _not_ a hotel and..."

Angel looked at Buffy, who by now was unable to control her giggling. "Is something funny?"

"You're so cute when you hover," Buffy grinned and Angel rolled his eyes.

"Buffy, Harry's an adult in the magical world, but he's still only seventeen - "

"I'll be seventeen in January," Buffy pointed out and Angel irritably ran a hand through his hair.

"That's not what I meant. You have your mother here and...well, Harry doesn't...he only has me."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"He deserves..." Angel frowned, running his hands over his face. "More support than that. Especially if he plans to go to the high school. He'll definitely be the only one of us there - English, Irish - Giles counts, but as you, Willow, and Xander love to point out about him, there's just things he won't get. He needs friends his own age here in the States. His mates and cousin are all in Ireland right now and while there's the Floo Network, I haven't got a fireplace, let alone a connection to it."

Buffy found herself only getting more confused, "Mates? The Floo Network? Sounds like a TV channel."

Angel chuckled slightly. "'Mates' are friends where we're from. And the Floo Network is a connection between magical fireplaces that allows wiza - magical people - " Harry grinned, then. "To travel by fire. It uses a special powder that acts so as to make the person impervious to fire for the ride through the Network, but landing's rather tricky. I never actually learned how to land on my feet when I was human. The same for Portkeys."

Angel looked at Harry, who was smirking now. "I'm having so much fun imagining a vampire falling on his face out of the fireplace," the much younger man said with a smirk.

Angel narrowed his eyes at Harry, but the younger man didn't budge in his grinning. "Portkeys, Buffy, since Angel's now much too irritated to describe them are enchanted objects that allow you to travel to a predestined place. Ordinarily, they're illegal to make on your own, but that's not really anything anyone's caring about right now. Everyone's too busy celebrating."

"Riddle's finally dead," Angel said quietly, but with obvious relief, and Harry looked at him oddly, "You knew."

Angel looked awkward, then, and sighed, "Dumbledore...contacted me at one point in the early sixties. Tried to draw me out. He said going up against Riddle would be an excellent way to atone for...everything." By the end of his sentence, Angel was deeply incensed, as was Harry.  
Buffy, again clueless and starting to hate it, chimed in.

"Um, hello? If I'm a part of this wizardy world I don't even know about, then who's this Riddle guy and what's he got to do with you when you were all evil and stuff?"

Angel flinched, but took the question in stride since it was a valid one. "Blood status means a lot in the Wizarding world, unfortunately, and there were times when Albus Dumbledore - yes, that was his real name - I was told he died early last year."

Angel glanced at Harry, who stared stonily back, but nodded regardless. Angel took the cue and continued, "But when Riddle first started rising to power, around the nineteen-fifties, Dumbledore found me in New York and tried to remind me where some of my blood had come from - as if I could have forgotten any of it."

Angel actually rolled his eyes, then, something Buffy had never seen him do and it surprised her. "The Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry lived over a thousand years before I was even born - before any of my human descendants, apparently, were born - of course their blood and the power that lay within it still flows throughout the magical world and even the non-magical because of intermarriage between wizards and Muggles to keep magic from dying out. I'm not an idiot and I'm certainly not a puppet. I didn't bow to the Master and I sure as hell wasn't going to bow to a man less than half my age."

Angel looked at Harry now, treading carefully for he could sense Harry's conflicted feelings about his former headmaster. "Dumbledore had intentions, some good, some self-serving - he convinced himself they were one and the same a long time ago. Gellert Grindelwald murdering his sister, Ariana, was only the first time he was forced to realize he wasn't omnipotent or the rightful ruler of any and all magical beings. Attitudes like his are why the centaurs chose to remain classified as beasts.

"Arrogance. Angelus was arrogant, yes, very much so, but he never tried to rule a sphere of power larger than that which he could truly control. It's why I'm still here, despite everything I've been through and done. I have a big mouth at times - I always did as a human and that never changed. But I know my limits. Dumbledore never wanted to know his because then he would have had to admit some of his plans, if not all, weren't on the up and up.

"Dishonesty, Harry. You think Slytherin House was the only one ever guilty of such?"

Harry took a deep breath, ignoring Buffy staring back and forth between himself and Angel as best as he could. "No. And there were many noble and good-hearted members of Slytherin or descendants of Slytherins that have never gotten credit for any of it, like Severus Snape. And Regulus Black - "

Angel flinched, then, and sighed, and before Harry could stop himself, he asked, "You knew Sirius and Regulus Black?"

"I knew members of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Black, Potter, Longbottom - Lovegood, Weasley back when they each were one - Prewett, Bones, etc., though they had Irish names at the time..."

Then Angel surprised both Harry and Buffy by saying softly, "They were my neighbors, my friends, Harry - some, like the Lovegoods, my own extended family, as you've likely since figured out. I'm why many of them fled to England in the first place. I don't know if they know their histories within my old village, but I've never forgotten. The Muggles...they left the village in droves, but many of the wizards held out..."

A faraway, haunted look had taken over Angel's face and a gloss of tears now covered his eyes. "Salazar Slytherin...not many know this, but one of the reasons the Founders came together to form a school in the first place was because the Isles, the kingdoms and counties were divided - the Muggles were fighting and turning on us in the process.

"The witch trials in Salem, Massachussets, were simply the last straw in what was actually thousands of years of cycles of peace and conflict on both sides...the serious argument everyone talks about regarded Slytherin insisting that those of Muggle blood not be allowed into Hogwarts because he'd seen with his own eyes - Muggles had surrounded his village on all sides...in his view, they were surrendering, cooperating with the King to drive magic from Ireland as many of the Old Ways, snakes, and bears have been..."

"Slytherin was from Galway?" Harry asked, his voice low and faint with awe. Angel nodded. Harry, who'd started to rise from his seat upon the floor, sank back down onto it, his head now spinning where he held it in his hands as he took in this new knowledge.

"So...so the Founders sought to bring magical children together from all four countries to teach them to protect themselves?"

Angel nodded again, his eyes having dropped to the floor in some mixture of sadness, shame, and yet - indignant pride and anger. "The other three Founders wanted to attempt understanding as a tool to help end the fighting, but Slytherin was a firebrand - he felt he'd had enough. He'd watched our village - one we loved and were proud of, as it was so peaceful in comparison to the rest of the Isles, of Ireland, itself - become so 'diluted', he felt, with impure blood that no one knew one from the other - he hated it - he felt it was surrender, but he was ignored. Finally, he and Godric Gryffindor had that argument about it - Rowena Ravenclaw took Gryffindor's side, as did Helga Hufflepuff, and Slytherin left. Originally, he stated intentions to start his own school. Most don't believe he ever succeeded, but..."

"Durmstrang," Harry murmured softly and Angel nodded. "So the king _knew_ there was magic in Ireland, he just couldn't find it."

Angel nodded again, "By the time my great-great-grandfather - the last Peverell to actually carry the name - was born, the non-magical among us helped him - the king - look for us - they were desperate. There were tariffs, curfews, searches, fines, burnings, outright battles and executions. Part of it was retaliation for the Church's disagreement with the king's attempt at divorce at the time and so he decided to convert to Protestantism and to punish all Catholics for the decisions of the Holy Mother Church, but a lot of it was because of the wars of Muggles versus Wizards."

At Harry's stunned expression, Angel's only darkened further, "Don't be mistaken - Muggles did plenty of damage all by themselves - burnings, the Magdalene laundries - not all of them were 'fallen women' - pogroms similar to what was done to Jews...everyone was afraid and it only made everything worse. A village like ours, where magic and non-magic existed in relative peace didn't sit well with the tide of the rest of the western continent - or the magical world in general, what with their fear of non-magical people having risen to a fever pitch."

Harry and Buffy's eyes were both wide in shock and dismay now and finally Buffy spoke up in a whisper, "Is...is that how Darla turned you? Was she...?"

But Angel shook his head 'no', "Darla was a Muggle from here - the Virginia Colonies, I mean, though I...well, honestly, I was never interested in finding out very much about her, nor she about me. All we cared about during our time together was the thrill, the whirlwind...the blood. But the deep rift that already existed between Catholics and Protestants came to exist between the non-magical and the magical."

Harry sighed, "That's not entirely true, from what I experienced while in Greater Galway."

Off Angel's surprised, yet confused look of his own, Harry expanded, "My friends and I decided to fix the village and turn it into a living, breathing one again. The ghosts there agreed. They became much happier and have stopped existing in fear. We decided to call it Little Galway in reference to its size and proportion to the larger city and county that surrounds it and mix magical and non-magical technology so that whoever needed to be there could feel comfortable. It's meant to be a refuge for those who've lost their homes and families in the Second War against Riddle. It's where my mates and I've been for the last month after we left Snape's house."

Angel was staring in what would have been abject horror if he hadn't had such strong control over his facial features by that point, but even he couldn't stop the burning tears that gathered and fell down his face. "E-everyone's a...a ghost?"

Harry frowned, "Not everyone, from what I could tell, but - well, your father, stepmother, and your little sister certainly are. I spent a lot of time talking to them, the priest - a lot of your neighbors. They gave me tons of memories of life with you there when I showed them my Patronus. It's like those memories are mine now because they haven't gone anywhere, but your father..."

This was when Angel lost it, unable to hear anymore. If he'd been human, Harry would have sworn he'd be a pale greenish tinge. Instead, he looked grey and swayed slightly as if he were going to faint, but rather turned around and jumped out of Buffy's window without a word.

Buffy ran to her window and called his name, but Angel had disappeared. She whirled back around and almost yelled at Harry, though she managed to stop at the last minute, "What did you do that for!"

By the end of Harry's very short monologue, Buffy had intended to turn to comfort Angel, but instead found him dashing out of her room as quickly as he could and off into the surrounding neighborhood and God only knew where.

"What would you prefer, Buffy, that I lie to him? I _was going_ to tell him what his father wanted me to let him know - that he was loved and that his father was sorry for everything that had gone so wrong between them - his father blames himself for everything Angelus did, you know!" Harry was hissing, but his voice kept threatening to rise to a yell.

Buffy's breath hitched and she stared at Harry in complete shock now, but Harry continued.

"His sister thought herself a fool for knowing he was dead, but inviting the demon into their house - _Seanathair_ - Grandfather had told her it would do her no good to be seen as one if she went off on the adventures they'd planned and hadn't known anything, so he was teaching her the ways of non-magical people while she was learning magic! The priest said a funeral Mass for everyone lost in both wizarding wars! They taught me Irish and helped me with my Latin, as well! When we finished ridding the village of all the blood and pain-filled magic, the ghosts all became so much happier and welcomed us with open arms!

"Katherine, her mother - because they're half-brother and sister - Ailbhe, and their father, Connor, especially - their only wish is that Grandfather could be happy one day. They know he's cursed and that's how his soul was returned to him, I'm not sure how, but they do. I asked and they could only say they felt it within them - they'd felt his return to this plane from beyond the Veil. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to track down my greats-grandfather again and explain at least some of this to him. Are you going to come with or will you be trying to kick my arse because one Body-Binding spell could put you down for the count, Slayer or no."

Buffy frowned deeply, but prepared herself for the jump out of her window, as well. Harry was right behind her and didn't look worried about the height, either.

"After we find Angel, I'm kicking your ass."

"Yeah? As I've said in the past - try me."

_My insides all turn to ash, so slow, and blew away as I collapsed, so cold..._

...TBC...


	8. Comparison

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer: **Rowling and Whedon own nearly all. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. "Miles Away.". Interscope Records, 2003. Interpol. "Our Love to Admire.". Capitol., 2007.

**Summary: **But then, hadn't he been brought up that way? In the end, it didn't matter where the Sorting Hat had been keen to put them all.

**Notes: **Sorry this one took so long to get out. I don't know why I ignore my own muse. It stops me in my tracks and I good and well know it.

**Notes, cont'd.: **For lack of anything else to say, this story really excites me because of the avenues I can travel in it. *absolutely shivers*

Part VI: Comparison

Harry struggled to get Buffy's attention, inwardly cursing both her Slayer stamina, as well as his own normal human speed. When she looked backward, it was with a distinctly sour expression on her face as she watched Harry gasping, both hands on his knees, as he tried to keep from collapsing to the ground.

Honestly, there was running for one's life and then there was _this_shite.

Buffy turned back and stomped over to where Harry was finally beginning to feel the ache in his chest recede and just about snarled at him.

"We don't exactly have time to waste, you know!"

Harry didn't bother hiding his glare at those words, "Human...here!"

Buffy merely rolled her eyes and made a big show of staring at her wrist as though there was a watch on it.

"By all means," Harry snapped, once he'd gotten his breath back, reaching up to pull out his pocketwatch and show it to her. "It's been all of two minutes since we left your house!"

Buffy's eyes widened at the intricate face of Harry's watch, with its visibly delicate workings going around inside. "Wow."

"Yeah, 'wow', can we slow down, please? I'd only like to find Angel without having a heart attack!"

Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation, "You look like an athlete, it shouldn't be that hard. Didn't you say you were one of those wizard thingies? Don't you have a broom to ride or something?"

Harry paused, about to say 'athlete, not supernatural', but his mouth dropped open as the realization that he'd forgotten all about his Firebolt after not having ridden it in so long hit him full in the face.

"When this is over, I'm hexing myself out of sheer stupidity and hexing _you_for sheer sadism," Harry snarled, his hand digging around in the mokeskin pouch until the smooth handle of his Firebolt was suddenly grasped in his hand.

"Angel-would-kill-you," Buffy sing-songed, And, hey, don't expect me to stop you _trying_, except I don't think Angel would appreciate...whatever you are...hurting yourself even if you totally deserve it."

Harry rolled his eyes and swung his leg over the Firebolt, whipping out the Invisiblity Cloak, as well, even as Buffy insisted no one would admit to seeing him doing anything like this.

Harry shook his head, decided to keep it handy just in case, balling it up in his left hand, and leaned forward, rocketing past Buffy at a speed that actually had her protesting the fairness of Harry having what was obviously a really cool broom before pausing and saying to hell with it and dashing to catch up with him in but seconds.

Harry was tempted to tell her to quit whinging, but was equally impressed at her ability to quite easily keep up with an International Standard broomstick.

Finally at equal pace with one another, both Buffy and Harry sped through town as fast as they could, each following their own unique connection to Angel until it led them to what Buffy knew was Angel's apartment. He'd actually locked the door for once, which worried her, but Harry pulled out a stick and waved it, giving it a flick at the end, and the door's lock tumbled instantly, letting the door fall open to reveal a sight neither was prepared for.

Angel had utterly destroyed his apartment in the time it had taken them to find him, even the refrigerator and the blood within lay all over the floor, splattering everything and the windows were all broken. Angel, himself sat with his back to to thme in a corner, balling and flexing his equally bloody and obviously broken hands, not reacting as either Buffy or Harry inched slowly into the chaos surrounding them all.

"Guess it runs in the family," Buffy heard Harry mutter faintly and Angel twitched visibly, the muscles in his back trembling hard even as Buffy slowly walked forward bit by bit, moving only as long as Angel would let her and, then, not touching him when she arrived at his side.

Buffy slowly lowered herself to a crouch before Angel, who shrank back slightly, and was shocked to hear him whimper, "I killed...I killed them...Da...Kathy...Ailbhe...I kill - " Tears the color of blood leaked out of his eyes and Buffy fought not to let her mouth fall open. She glanced back at Harry to find him of a completely different mind, his jaw set in a determined manner before he, too, slowly joined Buffy in a mutual crouch, leading Angel to attempt to shrink back even further.

"Yes, you did," Harry said quietly and Buffy glared at him incredulously. "You're not helping!" she hissed at him, but he ignored her. "Because at the time, a demon had transformed all of the worst impulses that lay deep inside us all into your life's mission and sent your soul packing. Because, at the time, you had died and that demon stamped itself with your personality. So, really...no, you did not. You weren't there, Liam."

Angel hissed again, glaring golden-eyed at Harry, but Harry didn't budge. "Seanathair Liam...Grandfather Liam...you had flaws, yeah? So do I, so does Buffy...and if we were Sired, a demon would take hold of our bodies and exploit them to their darkest extent. Hermione - my best mate since First Year - she asked me how I felt I could come here and meet you when I didn't know if you were still evil or no - "

Angel shuddered again, but Harry ignored that and soldiered on. "But Luna - that's Luna Lovegood - " Harry also ignored the look of shock on Angel's face at Luna's name. "She understood like I did...I wasn't the only one who talks - talked, for me - to our family. She did, too. And they told us they knew you were safe on the other side of the Veil."

Harry could feel Buffy staring at him again, but plowed on, regardless, "They could feel you...at peace, like you deserved, forgiven and your human sins forgotten...and they could tell when you were pulled through the Veil back to Earth by the gypsies' curse. Your da...he cried again and, just thinking about it, it was heartbreaking for him. He'd so wanted you to rest, to know you were loved. But he could tell you forgot everything. It was the nature of the demon. Two separate entities, you are - you, Liam, and he - Angelus. He wanted me to tell you, you were - are loved. You need to listen, yeah?"

"I'm a monster," Angel whispered, shaking his head, and Harry sighed, "Well, monster or not, you can't stay here anymore. You've rather destroyed this place and I'm not good at repair spells like my mate, Hermione, is."

Harry sighed before suddenly brandishing his wand, "I'm really sorry about this, Angel - _Petrificus Totalus_!"

_...As a spider comes and looks at you like an enemy, you wonder..._

**County Apparition Point - Little Galway, County Galway, IRE  
Early Morning, Little Galway Bayside Apparition Point; The Same Moments**

Draco was tempted to both rub his eyes and shy away, making himself as small as possible. Potter and his friends had written an authenticated letter, complete with a seal bearing Potter's own family crest and traced back to Potter's magical aura, specifying that not only had Draco's mother willingly given Potter help against the Dark Lord, as Professor Snape also had (Potter had also cleared their former Potions master, making certain his portrait now hung with the other headmasters and 'mistresses of Hogwarts), but that Draco had been forced to perform Dark acts against his will and should be granted clemency on the condition that Draco's original wand be snapped and a new one be created for him by Ollivander and that Draco swear on his magic never to perform Dark Arts of his own free will again.

Draco held the new wand now as he sat beside his mother on a bench near the Apparition destination site, marveling that his father was on the other side of them and not in Azkaban. It had also been verified by Potter, who asked that each member of the Malfoy family drink Veritaserum so as to testify to what happened once the Dark Lord had taken over their manor. That both Draco and Narcissa had each defied the Dark Lord and that Narcissa and Lucius, even after all the chaos that had undertaken Hogwarts School, had merely cared to find their son and assure his safety...Potter had made certain Draco knew that his parents were the only reason all three of them weren't in Azkaban.

Potter had kept his mouth shut about what had happened in the Room of All Hidden Things, allowing Draco to keep that to himself, as well.

Crabbe was still missing, according to the Ministry of Magic, and would stay that way if Draco had his choice in the matter.

But Draco's mind was running away with itself. The final condition of the Malfoy family's continued freedom had been coming here, to this place Potter and his friends had fixed up, and agreeing to live among whomever else was deemed a refugee from the Second War. Because they were refugees now and had to accept that fact, their family gold seized and put by the reformed Ministry - absolutely everyone who had served under Minister Fudge was now sacked, their own gold taken, as well, just like the old families such as theirs - toward the rebuilding of New Wizarding Britain, the only-just inaugurated Minister of Magic, _Arthur Weasley_, of all...Draco clamped down on that thought, glancing at the special bracelet he and his father both had to wear during their twenty and seventy years' probation periods that tracked their magical signatures and made absolutely certain they performed no Dark magic.

Draco sighed, forcing himself to let go of all thoughts of what had changed from that which he'd known all his life. It didn't matter what had happened anymore. All that mattered now was what was going on now, what would happen _next_.

And what was happening next was that Draco was watching both Hermione Granger - such an odd thing, considering her by her given name - embrace her parents and cuddling the part-kneazle she'd owned for most of the time he'd known her, crying unabashedly the entire time...and Ginevra Weasley (another odd thing, actually finding out her given name, which he'd never known and hadn't thought to imagine he ever would) as she stepped demurely out of the clear, shimmering tube of magical energy Granger and Lovegood had reconfigured after apparently searching for the one centuries' old that had once stood in this very spot.

Her eyes locked on his and he thought she would immediately turn away, her entire bearing disgusted by him. But she only seemed intrigued instead. She was wearing brand-new robes for the first time in all that he'd ever seen her and...Draco forced himself to look away, wishing the two colored spots high on his cheeks would disappear. It didn't matter, none of it mattered.

Ron Weasley tumbled awkwardly out of the Apparition Point next, nearly knocking her to the ground, and Ginny immediately turned and began to argue unabashedly with him, caring not for their new station in life, nor for the people gathered round.

Draco rather found he admired that, against his will. In another instant, their mother - he now knew her name to be Molly Prewett Weasley, or rather Lady Molly Prewett Weasley, also adorned in brand-new robes as her husband was now Minister of Little Galway - wordlessly yanked the pair of them apart and sent them packing off to some unknown tasks.

Draco found himself astonished at her complete lack of modesty in doing so, her only care being for her children not beating each other senseless, which Draco was sure would have happened eventually. The Weasleys had lost many points for Gryffindor House for fighting in various capacities, as had Potter.

Draco could hear his parents muttering contemptuously beside him, obviously forgetting their loss of 'status' in wizarding society as they called the youngest Weasleys' behavior 'low' and their father 'muggle and Mudblood-loving filth'. They'd obviously forgotten the mercy Ar - Minister Weasley had shown them in even allowing them refuge here as opposed to a cozy, dark set of cells in Azkaban like most of the other surviving Death Eaters.

His father had obviously forgotten watching Fenrir Greyback, still ravaged and barely alive in the first place, given the death penalty for his crimes against Muggles and wizard-born alike. But they hadn't done it themselves. They'd treated his injuries, certainly, but then he'd been left out in the Forbidden Forest for the creatures there to deal with, in their own fashion. Like penalties for like crimes.

Draco couldn't forget. It had been himself and his father who had been ordered to escort Greyback into the forest, the huge werewolf weak yet still bound in magically reinforced manacles and floating on a stretcher that disappeared the moment they'd set him on the ground. It had been the centaurs who had come out first, of course. They always did, if Draco remembered correctly. Other creatures had, as well - even an acromantula, which had promptly begun clicking and snapping its' pincers. It had been Professor Slughorn, their escort, who had saved them from the gigantic spiders by casting a complicated spell of some sort that had created a ring of harmlessly burning fire around both Draco and Lucius, as well as himself, until the centaur, one called Bane had stalked up to them and asked their business in the forest.

Slughorn had managed to still his quaking and said in a surprisingly steady voice everything Luna Lovegood had told him to say about justice being done where one beast had disrespected, savaged all the life around him for as long as he could have gotten away with it and the forest and its' inhabitants would do with him what they would.

Bane had nodded before turning his eyes upon Draco and saying sharply that 'this one' was no longer the foal he'd met of so shortly ago and his soul, too, was stained, Bane's eyes locking on Lucius' - 'this one's most of all' - but Slughorn had spoken the objection upon their behalf. That the humans were dealing with Draco and his father in their own way and that neither had hurt any beasts and, thus, weren't the forest's jurisdiction. Bane had pointed out Lucius' foul and vicious treatment of Hagrid, who had been a friend to all in the forest since he'd come to Hogwarts and likely that of his original home.

Bane's eyes had narrowed and they'd locked on the barren spot where Hagrid's home on the grounds had once stood. "He burns that which does not belong to him and thus shall be burned in return - Mars shines still brightly with judgment upon him. That foul, rotting mare he'd always been seen with had so loved fire - why shouldn't Mars get its retribution in her blood...and his?"

Bane had then turned to Draco, rearing up on his hind legs with his bow and arrow drawn so quickly none had seen it, but Lucius had leapt before Draco, his eyes wide with fear, his cane abandoned upon the ground as he fell to his knees before Bane and shoved Draco further down behind him.

"Please? Please? He's my only son, please? You...kindly have mercy, for his soul is not nearly so tainted as mine, his actions were the results of my teachings and I take full responsibility. Have mercy, denizen of the Forbidden Forest...please, take me instead? Not Draco. Please, not Draco..."

Bane had dropped back onto his forelegs, then, his face impassive for many minutes, before turning to Professor Slughorn. "You were very fond of your shining mare, the one called Lily Evans, were you not?"

Professor Slughorn had answered, "I had not been the only one, but yes...she was one of my favorite stu - one of my favorites. She loved learning of the ways of the beasts Hagrid talked about, she, too, thought every one of you beautiful. I expect she would have taught - her foal, Harry, as much as she could have."

Unexpectedly, Bane had nodded before turning back to Lucius and tilting his great, shaggy head to his left. "How interesting, the repeat of time, on and on. The returning of past events so quickly, yet with opposites. I shall show mercy where your Dark Lord did not, Lucius Malfoy, and I shall not kill your young stallion, Draco...the young dragon. But you shall never enter this forest again, or your mercy be forfeit, be it by myself, my brethren, or any of the other who call this place home. Your Dark Lord and his herd - including you - thought us inferior. Do not force me to show you the error of your ways and be gone from this place now."

With that, Bane had turned and galloped away, ignoring the creatures immediately coming forth from all sides to investigate the body of Greyback, still pungent with blood even now, and Slughorn had insisted they abscond immediately lest they become more courses and dessert.

Every now and again, Draco reached up and touched his forehead, wondering why no scar resided there. But then he remembered: mercy.

But he knew that by now Fenrir Greyback was long dead, devoured by those he'd so disrespected. Draco wonders what fate awaits Dolores Umbridge once her term in Azkaban ends. She's already had to deal with the centaurs, he knows. He has a sneaking suspicion she was at the very least half-blood, if not completely Muggleborn. This contradiction fascinates him for minutes at a time.

No doubt they both would have been Kissed had the Dementors still been under the previous Ministries' control - or was that just Draco's background talking? He knew the Light side had loathed and feared, despised the use of the Dementors as a whole - Dumbledore certainly had - with a few Slytherin-influenced, fearful exceptions. Greyback would have received a fate far worse than death, Dumbledore would have insisted.

Funny, how often he thinks of Dumbledore nowadays. Draco gave his tinsel-colored hair a shake and concentrated again on the Weasley's argument, which was escalating into a full-blown row. Draco imagines that, had his sister been another brother, they'd be trading blows by now.

Draco has never punched anyone in his life. He rubbed his left cheek now, remembering where Hermione Granger had punched him. Muggle techniques and the wizards and witches who use them. He could write a book about it if he knew even the slightest of what he was actually talking about. But he didn't so he went back to watching, ignoring his parents' ridiculously self-righteous muttering and insults, glad neither Weasley...Ginevra and Ronald, he'd been told to call them by his mother, now that their father was Minister...could hear them.

Weasley.

William.

Charles.

Percy. Draco wondered sometimes why his name wasn't Percival, but - as was often - merely let it go.

Fred. The one who was dead and whose twin had walked about in a daze, refusing food until he'd become so thin as to need to be sheltered in Madam Pomfrey's wing and replinished. Draco also wondered why his name wasn't Frederick. They were a pureblood familiy going back generations, from the Prewetts, to the Weasleys, to in relation to the Longbottoms, Blacks, and even the Potters, though all three more distantly than Draco, himself.

George. The one who was wasting away lest his family keep the strictest eye upon him. It made Draco glad to be an only child, not one of so many like the Weasleys or raised alongside another like Potter and Dursley. No one to mourn so deeply, it was as if your heart had been torn out and rendered.

But Draco was getting distracted. Ronald Weasley. His nemesis, along with Potter, for six years and another one with a proper name (after George) for all that it...Draco forced himself to stop thinking. What had his proper name and his proper breeding gotten him? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Ginevra. He wondered most of all why she was named that, wondered so many things about her together at all. From what little Draco knew of the younger Weasleys he'd attended school with, he couldn't understand why none of them from Percy to Ginevra (Ginny, he secretly thought when it was dark and no one could hear him but a possible God whom he couldn't see forgiving any of his still - he felt - piling sins...and the stars...), hadn't been in Slytherin. It seemed obvious to him.

But then, hadn't he been brought up that way? In the end, it didn't matter where the Sorting Hat had been keen to put them all.

They all still were here, on this smaller section of a smaller isle where wizard, halfblood, Muggleborn, and - he glanced at Hermione Granger's parents (he'd heard rumors that they were dentists, whatever those were) - Muggle were asked, not expected, merely asked to live alongside one another and try to rebuild their lives after the chaos of the past four years. Draco and his family, the Weasleys - even Hagrid, who was occupying himself with meeting Granger's parents - none of them had had a choice.

So what about them? Why was everything so different and completely the same for them all at once?

All Draco could do was sit and think. The manacles around his ankles, chaining him to his parents, to his heritage, and _legacy_made sure of that.

Draco wondered had the Weasleys learned that from Potter, but then discarded the notion as he remembered Potter's Muggle - no, it had been splashed all over the Daily Star (the _Prophet_had been disbanded and shuttered, those who had actually fought in the war calling fortrue journalists to step forward; Rita Skeeter had been sentenced to binding in her illegal Animagus form for all she'd done) that his mother's family had actually descended from an incredibly long branch of Squibs and his cousin was one, as well.

Dudley Dursley was watching Draco, he could now see, a stone-like flatness to his expression. Draco could immediately tell that Dursley knew all about him and what he'd done to...Harry.

Draco swallowed and edged more closely to his mother. For the first time in his life, away from the Dark Lord, he felt the need to be the one needing to watch his own back.

_This is the only version of my desertion that I could ever subscribe to..._

**...TBC...**


	9. Blood

**New All Over**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer: **Rowling and Whedon own nearly all. Radiohead. "OK Computer.". Parlophone, 1997. Taking Back Sunday. "Louder Now.". Hollywood, 2006. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. "Show Your Bones.". Interscope, Polydor Records, 2006.

**Summary: **Buffy carefully took Angel's wrists both in one of her hands and used the tail of her shirt to wipe the tears from his face. "I'm proud to find these things out, Angel, I wish you were proud to tell me."

"I'm - Liam's dead!" Angel roared, his voice choked with tears and more came to both Buffy and Harry's eyes, as well. "They're all dead an' it's my fault!"

**Notes, first: **People usually make Willow the Weasley - or, rather, Prewett - in question. Not here. Also, infinitesimal nod to Jhonen Vasquez again.

**Notes, second:** Just for letting everyone know, I don't plan to re-hash every single Buffy episode for this story, but there will be mentions of things per the story's timeline for orientation purposes, because to do otherwise would be boring, not to mention tedious. Also, I was re-reading _Viva Las Buffy _again tonight and have now had ideas. Fun.

**Notes, third:** Also, just for future reference, canon possibly doesn't take a large amount of the comic continuity into account like they don't the books, but Sam was _not _the only person Angel ever sired with a soul, though there was a magical vortex involved in the second circumstance. So I suppose there's that.

**Notes, fourth:** Anyway, the point is that please just assume that, in all my stories, the _Viva Las Buffy_ through _A Stake to the Heart _comics have happened, even if ANGEL: After the Fall, etc. (the IDW post-ANGEL continuity, not Dark Horse, 2010, etc., of course, which never - ever - happens) happening is not always the case.

Part VII: Blood

_Mum has a second cousin who's an accountant, but we don't talk about him much. - Ronald Bilius Weasley_

_Actually, it explains a lot. - Daniel Osbourne_

Buffy found herself balling her fists in supreme effort to keep from throttling Harry as they walked and flew slowly through the darkness of Sunnydale with Angel's frozen form underneath Harry's stupid cloak that refused to so much as slip so she could see him or anything.

Yep, when they were getting to the mansion on Crawford Street that Harry had insisted was the best place to go as it was so roomy and isolated, she was killing him immediately...Buffy closed her eyes and fought the urge to swear. If she killed Harry, how would she get this stupid curse off Angel?

Damned logic. When all this was said and done she was going to have _both_Angel and Harry explain more of this magic stuff to her and how it was different from the magicks Merrick (Buffy bit her lip, then, and glanced up at the sky, wishing him peace) had briefly described to her while he was her Watcher.

She guessed that Giles did the same kind but this was different somehow and she was also going to ask him if he knew anything about it. All this junk going on around her and her not knowing anything about it was getting to her in the worst way.

_...Stubborn skin thickens in attempt to understand..._

They finally reached the locked gates in front of the mansion and Harry pulled out his stick again, tapping the huge locks and Buffy watched in slightly lessened surprise as they fell away and gently floated noiselessly to the ground. The gates were also somehow pushed open without a sound after Harry did something else and their procession walked quietly onto the overgrown grounds of Crawford Mansion.

It wasn't until they had repeated the 'ritual' to enter to enormous house that Harry finally exhaled and clenched his eyes shut, gently settling his broomstick next to the door as though it belonged there, as well as hanging his cloak on an ancient hook. It all looked so absurdly homey that Buffy almost smiled.

Almost.

"Alright, whatever you did, take it off Angel _now_," she said in her deadliest voice, but Harry didn't flinch as she expected, since that's what people usually did when she used her _Slayer_voice. This urked her somehow, but Buffy forced herself to let it slide.

"If you'd wait five seconds, that was what I was going to do anyway, but I need to make sure he's not going to run away the moment I do."

If anything, he was aggravated but, regardless of that fact, Harry raised his stick above his head -

"Wand," Harry said irritably, lowering it and turning to glare at her suddenly (finally), and Buffy flinched, herself, this time in abject surprise.

"W-what?"

"It's not a _stick_, it's a _wand_. As for why I know what you're thinking, it's called Legilimency and since you don't have any mental shields your thoughts are blazing at me like a lit-up billboard and I can't block them out properly - Occlumency - because I haven't had enough practice just yet, especially because I haven't practiced while doing things like this."

Harry sighed, then, "Plus, I'm doing other spells and you can't do two at once, only one after another, and I'd have to raise the shields before I started doing something else, but this was far more important than blocking your mind out of my own."

Buffy immediately froze and could feel herself paling. "You can...read my mind?"

Harry sighed, "Something like that, yeah, but I swear I'm not digging around in it or anything. It's just your thoughts about harming my person are rather loud, so to speak, so they're blaring at me, like I said. At this point, _Seanathair_ Liam has iron-clad shields in _addition_ to being a vampire - their thoughts don't have reflection just like their bodies don't, I found out - so I couldn't even if he was human because he's had so long at it, it's practically _first_-nature.

"I found out that when he was being taught our type of magic, Occlumency and Legilimency were mandated courses because of all the tension between the magical and non-magical factions and the different types of magic employed even by those our world would call 'Muggles'. Werewolves like my friend Remus had some natural protection, as well, though I never knew it until recently. All magical creatures, both Light and Dark, do to varying extents, but let's get this Body-Bind off my grandfather, shall we, and then we can continue our little chat."

"What did you do to the room just now?"

Harry sighed again, but didn't lower his wand again, "I Impeturbed it. You'll see why in a moment. Yes, that's kind of like making a rubber barrier around the edge of it so things can't get through to somewhere else, particularly sound. Extendable Ears can penetrate an Impeturbed room, at least somewhat, I don't know how or if Fred and George - "

This time Harry was the one who paused and blessed himself - something Buffy immediately noticed made Angel's eyes widen before they glossed over with tears again - before discontinuing his speech and finally raising his wand and moving it in a slow, steady circle around the room, paying particular attention to the atrium in front of them and the doors behind them and on the sides of the huge room they were in, which Buffy guessed had been a living room once.

Harry at last pointed his _wand_ at Angel and very clearly said, _"Finite Incantatem!"_and Angel sprang up, immediately dashing past them both to pull and shove violently at the doors, beginning to claw at them when Harry's shields held. Buffy, afraid he was going to bloody himself up even worse, quickly ran forward and used her own strength to wrestle Angel away from the door and downward onto the floor. Angel was actually no worse for already torn wear and the floor, itself, seemed oddly cushioned when they landed.

Angel began thrashing again, but Buffy grabbed his wrists and held him firmly but gently as she could. "Angel, I'm not going to let your hurt yourself again and neither is Harry, no matter how irritating he may be."

"Right there with you, Slayer," Harry rejoined, squatting down next to her and slowly moving his wand over Angel's body, whispering something she couldn't make out. The blood all over Angel's face, hands, and clothes - to Buffy's immense shock, now - was slowly siphoned into Harry's wand, leaving him practically pristine except for the fact that his bones were still very obviously broken. "Also, since we've both been branded Chosen Ones, I won't call you 'Slayer' again. Just Buffy. Please just call me 'Harry', I'd really rather be friends than having you calling me 'Potter' like all my enemies have tended to."

Buffy spared Harry a quick glance, but nodded, if at Angel's still struggling form. "Deal. Nobody ever calls me 'Summmers' without 'Miss' in front of it, I couldn't even imagine that."

Harry chuckled darkly, "Well, to phrase it as I heard someone say something similarly tonight at that pub - "

"The Bronze and it's a _club_," Buffy corrected and Harry rolled his eyes.

"_The Bronze_, then, Jesus! Which is still a public house! Nitpicking - now, really? Anyway, to phrase it somewhat like that - that's just how we do."

Buffy was suddenly so amused she almost slackened her hold on Angel and glared at Harry while allowing herself a giggle. "So what are we going to do, Harry?"

"First we have to try to wait for _Seanathair_Liam to calm down because I don't have any draughts on me and don't even know if they'd work on him anyway since his - and yours, for that matter - metabolism is so much faster than most. Then I'm going to try to talk to him again. This is important and I refuse to lose any more family because he can't tell the difference between his multiple personalities."

Buffy went very quiet, staring into Angel's eyes even when he closed them, further tears falling, "That's kind of what Angel said when he told me about his curse. He said the demon gets your body, but it doesn't get your soul. He said that's gone."

Harry watched his ancestor, his wand trained ceaslessly upon the body beneath Buffy's own crouched form, "Yeah, but for some reason, he doesn't think that rule applies to him. Maybe it's to do with being the only vampire to ever be given back their soul, albeit through the most underhanded, vengeful, completely lacking in scruples way possible. Honestly, setting him on fire would have been better, but I suppose they thought a quick death would have been doing him a favor and God knows the Kalderash didn't want to do that."

"Kalderash?"

Harry blew out a faint breath of laughter, "You know, _Seanathair_, for a bloke who likes a girl, you've told her next to nothing about yourself."

"Tell me about it," Buffy grumbled, resisting the urge to glare at Angel, but saving it for later when everything wasn't so dire.

Harry took a deep breath and continued, "The Kalderash were the Romany tribe who cursed Angelus and restored Seanathair's soul to his body to reside alongside the demon. They were mostly massacred not long afterward by the remainder of the Scourge of Europe. They had no right to do what they did, but the point is that I read about Angel in my mate Hermione's History of Magic notes - a bloody textbook in and of themselves - and there was further information in the stacks at the National University of Ireland, Galway, as well as Trinity College when I took a day trip there once.

"Our family tree - or the beginnings of it - was written in a Bible I found in what I can only assume was once _Seanathair_Liam's house. It had been hidden and I pulled it out of the floor while cleaning away calcified blood."

Angel began to thrash again, but Buffy held his wrists fast. "You went to Angel's old house?" she asked, however, her voice small.

Harry nodded solemnly, "I slept there for a while, actually. It was my favorite after we got everything cleaned up. _Mór-Seanathair_ Connor - that's 'great-grandfather', though that name would fit _Seanathair_, as well - and _Col ceathrar_Katherine - that's 'cousin', because she felt like one after we talked so much - gave Luna - my much closer cousin, only once removed, and a very good friend of mine - and I a tour of everything once we'd restored it. They said that since we were family, it was our house, too, and we should know about it and the village as a whole.

"When I showed _Mór-Seanathair_ the Bible, he pointed out his handwriting where he'd written down about _Seanathair_being born in the summer of 1727. His birthday's not far from mine, we were both born in summer - only his, it's in August, on the sixteenth, not the 31 July like mine."

Buffy carefully took Angel's wrists both in one of her hands and used the tail of her shirt to wipe the tears from his face. "I'm proud to find these things out, Angel, I wish you were proud to tell me."

"I'm - Liam's dead!" Angel roared, his voice choked with tears and more came to both Buffy and Harry's eyes, as well. "They're all dead an' it's my fault!"

"It was the demon," Harry said firmly and Buffy leaned in Angel's face, "Angel, do you want to hurt either Harry or I right now?"

Buffy swept her hair back away from her neck, to Harry's surprise, and he was about to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing when Angel finally wriggled out of her grasp and bolted for the interior of the mansion after realizing he couldn't get out of it altogether.

Buffy started to go after Angel, but Harry stayed her hand. "Not to waste any more of your _madwoman_urges, but I can find him much faster now that I have his DNA to follow and, besides, it really is getting late. Your mum will probably be waiting for you by now. It's after one. I don't have that problem, you do."

Buffy's eyes widened in dismay and fear for Angel, but she was forced to do as Harry suggested because he was perfectly right and her mom would be sitting on her bed, just waiting to have another talk with her about breaking curfew and getting into all kinds of trouble with the wrong kinds of people.

She knew she wouldn't have to defend Xander or Willow like it had been with Pike, but she'd have to try to explain who she was with tonight and that was going to be difficult since her mother thought Angel was a history major tutoring her and had no more idea about Harry than Buffy, herself, had a few hours ago.

Her heart torn, Buffy finally nodded and Harry flicked his wand at the door, allowing it to fly back open. Glancing back and swiping her face, Buffy then took off into the night. At least here, she knew Angel would likely be safe from himself. Harry could do that Impetuous thing again and make the walls and floor all soft...

With that only vaguely comforting thought, Buffy ran as fast as she could home and - for a change of pace - decided to sneak right in through the front door just to give herself some time to calm down.

Faintly, she could hear a little girl with medium brown hair, a mix between her mom and dad's, familiar voice saying, _"Ooh, Buffy, you're gonna get it when Mom - " a yawn " - finds you snuck out again."_Her voice was sleepy and she was wearing Buffy's Yummy Sushi pajama shirt, which far outsized her.

Her own voice snapping, _"WhenI snuck out? You shouldn't be in my room, Dawn, you should be at Angel's where it's safe, and why do you have Mr. Gordo again?"_

"You forgot him and - "

"You came all the way back to the house to get my piggy even though Glory's after you? Are you kidding me? Mom's got enough to worry about as it is, since you so kindly pointed that out, just like the rest of us - why don't you put yourself on a platter and say 'here I am' as loudly as you can! If anyone's in trouble, it's you!"

"What?" Buffy asked faintly, giving her head a rub, and sinking back to the wall. Even months later, she was still having strange aftereffects from the crap the asylum had pumped her full of while trying to control her. Sometimes, like now, she thought she had a little sister when she knew perfectly well she was an only child like Harry, Willow, and Xander all were and - most importantly - Mom knew nothing about the slayage.  
H-E-Double Hockeysticks, no.

But now wasn't the time for that. Now was time for more Purgatory.

_...They hide it, they hide it, they're never gonna find it..._

Harry snuck quietly through the mansion, the Cloak of Invisibility thrown back around him, as he searched for Angel in the depths of this enormous house, only to hear his voice echo through the walls as Voldemort's had done, but nothing so malevolent. Harry could hear the fear in Angel's tone as clear as day now that he knew what it sounded like. Angel was trying desperately to keep himself hidden by projecting his voice so that he seemed to be everywhere.

_WHAT IS THIS, HIDE AND SEEK AND YOU'RE IT?_

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes and merely yelled back, knowing Angel would hear him even if he didn't see him. "You're the one literally running scared, Grandfather! But unfair of you to say that, don't you think? I'm not leaving, if that's what you think is going to happen!"

"I'll kill you, don't you and Buffy _see_that!"

"If that was the case, neither of us would have made it five minutes with you. Well, no, that's not accurate. I have magic. I could put you in another Body-Bind and just toss you out in the sunlight like the Kalderash should have like any sane vengeful people would!"

"I drove them insane, isn't that obvious? I did the same to my people, the same to Drusilla, Darla and I! You have no idea what we did to her, what I did to her!"

"Our people! So the solution was to drive you far more around the bend than they would ever have the chance to be? Some solution! God doesn't like it when people try to play his part of the story, Angel, don't you know that? Darla, Dru, and Spike all devoured them and God and the Powers sat right back and let it happen - because you, Liam, were innocent of Angelus' crimes and it was _not_ an eye for an eye! You want me to kill _you_, Angel, is that it? Because I can think of a certain Slayer who'd have my guts for garters should I so much as try to do so!"

"Both of you are just - "

"If the word 'kids' is about to come out of your mouth, I wouldn't talk! Even at twenty-six, you were no more a man than you think I am, which is far more, if your behavior at the time was anything to go by. You knew nothing of love, why do you think Angelus is so obsessed with it? With passion? He has no idea what those two emotions feel like! Voldemort, instead, was repulsed by what he couldn't understand, but all Angelus wanted...was to feel...hated that he tried so hard to do so...and couldn't!"

"You think you - "

"I DO KNOW YOU, LIAM! I know you better than you'll know me unless you stop hiding from who you really are! A boy from Ireland who just got caught up, the wrong time, wrong place - you never wanted to hurt anyone! You only wanted to see the world outside the walls you lived within! You felt it a prison, you think I don't know what that's like?

"Every year Dumbledore stuck me back with the Dursleys on Privet fucking Close, had people tailing me and never bothered to tell me what was going on! Ickle Harrykins had to be kept in the dark for his own good - good of Dumbledore's plan, really! But I got past that and forgave and so can you, you can forgive your father and you can forgive yourself!"

Angel's sob was muffled now and Harry raised his wand once more, turning the corner he came to and sending a thick line of bluebell flames hurtling across the room, only to hit the opposite wall and spread harmlessly, though Angel, now transfixed by the sight, slowly backed away from them.

"Walk back toward the Light, Liam," Harry said softly, knowing Angel heard him. "It's waiting for you."

_God doesn't want you, but I still do!_

_I won't be made a fool, Angelus. Not by you, not by anyone._

Angel gave his head a shake, the visions tripping over themselves as they did when he was as upset as he was. He didn't know what was coming or going, only that it was Darla's voice. For all he knew, it was his own thoughts having taken on her voice. For days and nights after his soul was returned, all he saw was the past, all he heard were screams and moans, his father's voice telling him all along what a waste of a son he'd been...

"God doesn't want me," Angel murmured, curling in upon himself, but Harry had been edging forward and was bent over him again, the wand behind his back extinguishing the bluebell flames that were dancing in a seemingly dangerous fashion all along the wall now behind them both.

"Yes, God does."

"I've tried, God doesn't want me."

"You weren't ready to come back to the fold yet. You were using Him as the rod in your hand to punish yourself and that's not what He ever wanted, not for you, not for any of us."

"No," Angel shook his head and Harry sighed, "Where's your wand?"

"What?"

Harry closed his eyes momentarily before trying again, "Where's your wand, Angel?"

"Snapped on the Barbary Coast during World War I, anyway, what does it matter?" Angel vamped out now, baring his fangs at Harry, who - again - didn't so much as flinch.

"I'll write to Luna and ask her to talk with Ollivander - have him do her a favor and make one for you. He always said the wand chooses the wizard. Did you ever do magic as a vampire?"

Angel was staring fully at Harry now, "Are you completely mad?"

Harry forced himself not to react other than to calmly say, "No. And I'll take that as a no, as well. Though I suppose it counts in your favor that vampires seem to be immune to most curses and hexes, since they tend to need life to feed off of and/or blood to function and a vampire's blood is never his or her own. But I'll need something from your souled self for the wand. Can't have the demon trying to use it should the worst happen somehow and Angelus ever makes a return."

Then, without waiting or asking, Harry flicked his wand, conjuring his Thestral patronus, which Angel stared ceaselessly at as it walked nearer and nearer to him before engulfing him and washing through to his other side, now a grayish sort of color, rather than the silvery black swish it usually was.

Harry called it back to him and touched its nose, allowing it to absorb pieces of what memories he'd received in Galway before pointing his wand again, this time at Angel's already cross-burned chest with a mild flame, burning some of the older man's flesh to ash, causing Angel to flinch away and curl into himself again, hissing up at Harry, but Harry used his wand to force Angel's back to straighten, all the while apologizing, so he could collect the ashes that the wound had become in one of Snape's vials that he now carried with him at all times, along with a Shrunken copy of one of the Potions texts and Betelguese's equally Shrunken terrarium.

Angel stared up at Harry, heaving in utter shock as Harry capped off the ashes and Vanished them somewhere. The Thestral Patronus followed but moments later and Harry sank to the floor, breathing slowly as he stared at Angel from where they both now sat.

"Why are you - "

"I answered that already. You're my family. Aside from Dudley, the only blood family I have left with roots in the non-magical world. Luna only knows vaguely about non-magical people - she had some exposure from her mum, who was a half-blood, when she was really young - though she's learning from Hermione and Dudley. Neville, too, actually. They said they want to visit when they become proficient enough in Muggledom, Luna's words, not mine."

Angel frowned in frustration, a rebuttal on his lips, but Harry quietly cut him off.

"I've never had any true blood family, A-Angel. Ron and Ginny Weasley never told me that they were more or less my cousins removed by some such. My - my parents are dead. The man who may have been my father had he not mucked up so badly is dead.

"My aunt and cousin...well, I should probably include my uncle, but since he's not related to you, he really has no place in this...anyway, as far as I know, my aunt still despises me even if Dudley doesn't, but I don't want to go back to England ever again - maybe not even Europe. Too many bad memories there.

"Everyone in the wizarding world is related somehow, as you know...and even if they weren't, I'm the heir of not only the Potters, but the Blacks. And then there's you.

"You're a whole other kettle of fish because as far as anyone knows, you and Kathy were the only wizard and witch in my mother and aunt's lineage until my mum went off to Hogwarts. That's over two hundred years of...well, Squibs, to be bitterly concise. Our family and your neighbors, they gave me memories of you, but only Kathy and _Mór-Seanathair _were willing to talk to me at any real length about you."

Harry watched as Angel flinched sharply again, an involuntary hitch coming to his unbreath as he understood exactly why. "All the more reason for you to stay away from me, kid."

"I'm not a damned kid," Harry snapped, sitting up and pointing his wand at Angel's heart before scrambling to his feet, his wand hand however steady all the while. "If you want to get technical, Angel, I'm the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Destroyed The Dark Lord, and I could kill you, too. I've killed just as you have. It may have been necessary, but my hands are still stained with blood. Innocent blood, even.

"I almost killed Draco Malfoy by accident in my sixth year. If I hadn't taken Cedric Diggory with me to get the Triwizarding Cup in my fourth year, he'd still be alive. I was forced to weaken my mentor to the point of near death and then watch helplessly as he was killed in an act of mercy by a man I now know to be a hero and, in another time and universe, could have been my father.

"I remember his words even now, though I wasn't meant to hear them, _'Did it never occur to you, Dumbledore, that I don't want to do this anymore?' _Still, he kept his promises. Because he loved my mother, your greats-granddaughter, Lily Evans-Potter, more than anyone or anything else. Before I came here, my mates and I buried him next to her."

Angel was staring unabashedly at him now, but Harry ignored that and scowled, "Not to mention, in my fifth year, I needlessly got my godfather killed because I was too foolhardy to listen to reason and realize the depths of deception around me for that very purpose. So kindly spare me this 'too dangerous' shite. I finally have something to grasp onto and because you're afraid of getting attached to anyone again, you won't try. Some family." Harry didn't turn away, though. He merely stared.

Angel stared back at Harry, warring emotions within him. Whistler had told him to protect Buffy, that he would do, but why didn't he warn him at all about...about Harry?

"I killed mine," he said softly, a faint sting coming to the backs of his eyes. Harry fought the urge to snort, as that would be unforgivable.

"I'd heard. I also heard that your father - from his own lips - was rather like my uncle. Legend has it he was a right bastard to you and never expected you to so much as - well, anything. Well, to be honest, Angel, he got what he expected. He knows that now, has known it from the moment you were found dead, he said. He's hated himself for _centuries_for your sake."

At Angel's near-outburst, Harry continued loudly, "He treated you like rubbish, so rubbish you became, wasn't it? But you showed him, didn't you?"

Angel snarled, his game face rippling back to the surface, "What the hell are you trying to prove, Potter?"

Harry didn't move, merely frowned at Angel's reversion to his surname, but otherwise didn't so much as react. After Voldemort, a vampire's alternate face was next to nothing.

"That even now you're too afraid to take any chances because you're so convinced of your own...Merlin, is it hereditary? You sound like I did when Hagrid first told me I was a wizard. I remember telling him, 'But I'm just Harry. Just Harry.' Just Harry who was kept in a cupboard under the stairs and had never had so much as a stitch of new clothing until Mrs. Weasley - and that was among my first-ever Christmas presents - sent me a jumper like she did every year.

"Just Harry who was hunted at school and was more trouble than he was worth and never worth anything in the first - "

Before Harry knew it, Angel was on his feet and Harry hadn't yet finished talking, but Angel had stalked up to him and wrapped him in his arms, gripping Harry in as gentle yet fierce a hug as he could manage.

"Shush, now," Angel quieted, finally slipping back into his human face. "You're none of those things."

Harry murmured something in Irish and Angel froze, his brow furrowing as he felt something warm wash over him and envelop him.

Angel stepped back and couldn't decide whether to be angry or simply intrigued. "You weren't faking anything, but that was a trick. You just..."

"Sealed us as family," Harry said sheepishly, running his hand over his already even more mussed hair. "See you get away from me now,_Seanathair_."

"I'm not anyone's - "

Harry forced himself not to roll his eyes, "Yes, you are. She was from the Muggle section of the village - kind of like Godric's Hollow has a wizarding and Muggle section for everything.

"You never bothered going there and the darkness of what your demon did kept Muggles far and safely away. There's still a Muggle population in Galway, you know. I was just there, after all. You only wiped out the wizarding population. I was one of the first wizards to set foot in Galway in over two hundred years."

"My father wasn't a wizard," Angel objected, but Harry shrugged. "But he loved your mother, didn't he?"

Angel frowned, "You have your centuries mixed up and anyway, she was my stepmother. My mother died when I was three."

Harry blinked, heart-deep sadness instantly enveloping him. "Sorry."

But Angel only shook his head. "What fault is it of yours?"

"I feel at fault for a lot of things. My mate Hermione tells me it's a product of always being blamed for everything that went wrong in the Dursleys' house. It was always my fault, whatever it was. Even if it was Dudley's fault, I probably goaded him into it with my unnaturalness."

Harry froze slightly before forcing himself to relax as he heard a growl echo throughout the room from Angel, who looked the very picture ofthe monster everyone had talked about. And Binns...

Harry perked up slightly, remembering just then, "You're covered in both History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. One of the most famous vampires to ever exist."

This time, it was Angel who stopped moving. A scowl crossed his countenance, "I'm not worth anyone's study," he snarled, turning and stalking back away before Harry followed, turning Angel around, and punching him in the face, his wand promptly following as Angel stared at him in shock, his now-broken nose dripping onto his once white t-shirt.

"Didn't you just tell me I was none of the things the Dursleys always said? So why are we letting your father's _former_opinion of you - or those Watchers who never do anything but sit back and watch, just like the Ministry, as everything goes to Hell around them - why are we entertaining their ideas?"

Angel scoffed, however, "You don't understand, you're just a - "

"_Sectumsempra_," Harry hissed, this time meaning it as he watched a long swath of flesh cut open in Angel's chest and what blood he'd consumed begin to leak out. Angel looked at him in further shock. "Don't. Call. Me. A. Child. Again. _Episky_."

Angel felt his nose snap back into place and then Harry whispered, "_Vulnera Sanentur_" and Angel's torso slowly closed as Harry whispered the spell over and over.

"I'm sorry I lost control of my temper like that. You...you called me a child and while I could stake you, that'd be counter-intuitive to everything I'm trying to accomplish and, besides..."

Harry gazed mournfully at the spurt of blood that now lanced across the floor. "I had to show you. Somewhere in there is my blood."

Angel gasped for breath that would never come and then forced himself not to say that all Harry had spilled was animal blood. The cheeky little brat had gotten his point across. "You're definitely...too ruthless to be a child. I won't call you that again."

Harry nodded, his face blank, but his eyes haunted as he stared at the blood on the floor. Then Angel surprised him by again producing Harry's own wand that he'd gotten off him somehow and nonverbally _Scourgifying_the jet of blood that, ironically enough, had ended just near Harry's feet. He exhaled heavily before handing Harry's wand back to him.

"You plan to enroll at the school, you said?"

Harry fought the urge to run his hand through his hair again and simply nodded, still staring at the now-spotless floor. "Nobody knows me there," he whispered.

Angel could understand the allure.

_...All of these weird creatures who lock up their spirits...Drill holes in themselves and live for their secrets..._

_Six years earlier..._

Daniel Osbourne stared at the parchment envelope in his hands, turning it from end to end and side to side. He picked up the rest of the mail from inside the covered porch screen door and back through the front door into the kitchen, where he sat down at the breakfast table in the nook, across from Aunt Maureen and the baby, who she was feeding something that looked and smelled suspiciously like meat, but Daniel didn't question it. It was hard enough for him to speak very much at all for the past year since he'd found out what had happened to his parents when he was nine, just before his birthday. He certainly didn't feel like inquiring about something that was a regular sight anyway.

Uncle Ken had decided that past March that Daniel was finally old enough to learn the fates of his mother and father, who'd been murdered during a violent incident in England when he was only two years old.

It had followed a very large war between two major factions of magical people and his parents had been here in America at first but, at his father's behest - he'd been a Prewett by birth, it had turned out - he couldn't sit idly by and simply let non-magical and those without magic born to magical families be slaughtered by those who'd gotten away from the magical authorities (Uncle Ken and Aunt Maureen had shared restrained dirty looks at the mention of these authorities) without the Ministry of Magic in London so much as lifting a finger.

That was how Uncle Ken had seen it anyhow, as he described how Daniel's parents had both been accountants - had met in college at Oxford and gotten married just after having him and making Aunt Maureen and himself Daniel's godparents, leaving him in their care.

That had been before going off to make sure those unable to fight against the darkness around them had a way to safety here in various parts of America, with the help of the Salem Witches' Institute and...The Northern Rocky Mountains' School of Magic, an invitation to which Daniel now held loosely in his palms.

"I don't want to go," he said calmly. "I don't want to learn magic. I'm not a Prewett and, anyway, magic killed my parents. I want to stay in California where they should have...where they wouldn't have..."

Daniel wiped his face on his arm before crushing the letter in his fists and dumping it into the trash can and leaving the kitchen and going up to his room in the attic to practice more of the 'adult' guitar Uncle Ken had bought him for his eleventh birthday.

He'd stay here in Sunnydale with what family he had left, thank you. He didn't need any of these Prewetts who hadn't cared about his father or his mother or him. He was an Osbourne anyway.

**...TBC...**


End file.
